Long Way Home
by Mango Marbles
Summary: Sam runs to Flagstaff, and he keeps running.
1. Run

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** Since I can't seem to have only one story in progress, here's the start to another new story. Sam runs to Flagstaff, and keeps running. I hope you enjoy it! Since this is more of a prologue, future chapters will likely be longer.

* * *

When Dean goes out to hustle the locals at whatever sleazy bar he finds, Sam puts his plan into motion. For the first time in a long time, he hopes that Dean finds a girl at the bar with too-bright lipstick and overpowering perfume to occupy him for the night. It'd give Sam more time.

He hauls his duffel bag out from its place under his bed and pulls its strap over his shoulder. He barely unpacked. He didn't want to waste his time packing back up.

Every second counts.

This is it. This is the moment for which he's spent a year planning. The moment he finally escapes a lifestyle that's held him captive for sixteen years.

He pauses at the door. All of his belongings fit in a bag and he has the only pair of sneakers he owns on his feet, beat up and ready to fall apart at any step. He has the only jacket he owns on, the worn down fabric not doing much to protect him from the cold anymore.

Should he leave a note?

He looks at the rickety table in the kitchen. It feels strange to have a real kitchen, but his dad thought that the hunt was going to be a long one and found a cheap apartment with a landlord who let them lease it month to month.

The fact that the hunt is a long one works in his favor as well. The farther out his dad is, the longer it will take him to get back when Dean inevitably calls about Sam's absence.

A note won't do anything, he decides. No matter what he writes, it won't stop Dean from trying to track him. It won't offer any semblance of closure.

He opens the door, steps outside, and shuts it behind him. He shuts it on the life he used to have and steps forward in search of a new future. There's a Greyhound station not far from where he is, and he starts his journey by heading in its direction.

He has enough money for the Greyhound ticket, and enough to survive for a few weeks after he arrives at his destination. It won't be ideal and he won't be living in luxury, but he's been saving from tutoring and odd jobs that he played off as study groups and meetings for group projects.

There's a moment when he's waiting for his bus that he reconsiders his decision. He questions what the hell he's thinking and why he's running away in the first place. When he thinks about returning and having to face his father and wait for another argument to break out, he realizes that he's more afraid of that future than a future full of unknowns on his own.

He steels himself, and when his bus starts boarding, he gets on without thinking about the things he's leaving behind. He thinks about the future. He thinks about a life where he gets to choose the direction he goes. He thinks about a life with a white picket fence, a college degree, and a wife with whom he can see himself growing old.

He sits next to an older man with grey hair and a kindly face. He wears a sweater and round glasses, and Sam imagines that he's what a grandfather would look like if he ever had one.

The man gives him a pleasant smile, then turns and spends his time watching the landscape pass by through the window.

Sam settles in his seat for a long ride.

First stop: Flagstaff.

* * *

Dean kills the Impala's engine, gets out, and stretches his arms over his head. There's a nice wad of cash in his pocket, and he thinks that he might be able to spare enough to take Sam out to eat something that doesn't come in a grease stained paper bag.

It's a good day. The best part was the frisky blonde who loved a man in a leather jacket, and he's sure that his smile and natural charm sealed the deal. Now, he's ready to go out and have a late supper with Sam.

He opens the door to their current temporary home, and calls Sam's name.

"Sammy! You hungry?"

Silence is his only answer, and he moves farther into the apartment. "Sammy? You here?"

And again, there's no answer. No hint of Sam's presence.

That's when Dean's mind starts going through worst case scenarios. What if something got Sam while he was gone? What if something happened and Sam has been taken by surprise or overpowered? He's still small for his age, and scrawny. And, yeah, he can hold his own for the most part, but he's more vulnerable at the same time.

"Sam, answer me if you're here. This isn't funny," Dean says.

Sam isn't the type to hide for no reason, and the bedroom is empty, so it isn't like he's sulking in there. Dean doesn't remember Sam saying anything about a group project or hanging out with friends. He doesn't remember Sam having any reason _not_ to be there.

There's no note saying that he's gone out, and Dean is left to scour the apartment for any hints as to what happened to Sam.

It wasn't a break-in, the door was locked and intact when Dean arrived. The windows are all closed and locked as well, not a scratch or a crack on them.

There's no blood or sulfur. No hint that anything supernatural has set foot in that apartment.

Dean is seconds away from hyperventilating, trying to find what he's overlooked. Trying to find _anything_. Sam might need him at that very second. Sam might be _dying._

He could already be dead.

No, no, no, no, no. Sam can't be dead. He can't die on Dean's watch. His dad would never forgive him.

He would never forgive himself.

He checks the bedroom again, tearing the blankets and sheets from Sam's bed, then drops to the ground to look beneath it.

He finds nothing.

He finds _nothing_.

Sam's stuff is gone. He wasn't taken. He's left of his own accord.

Dean flips onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, unable to comprehend the situation. Sam left. Sam ran away. Sam made a decision and knowingly left his own family.

Why? Are things that bad that he feels like he has to escape? Does he hate hunting that much? Does he hate _them_ that much?

How could Dean have missed him getting ready to leave? This can't be a spontaneous decision, Sam's too smart for that. He's too careful.

Sam planned on leaving right under their noses, and Dean never noticed. Then again, it dawns on Dean that he hasn't really paid much attention to Sam recently. He's old enough to survive on his own, and Dean takes advantage of that to go to bars and hook up with women.

He should've spent more time with Sam, tried to figure out why he's so sullen all the time. He should've figured out how to make Sam's life a little easier. A little better.

This failure is on him.

He digs his phone out of his pocket, the wad of cash he earned from hustling more of a painful reminder of his negligence than it is a prize. While he waits for his dad to pick up, he holds his breath.

"What is it, Dean?"

"Sam's gone, Dad," Dean says. "He left."

"So, go get him."

"No, Dad. He's _gone._ His stuff is gone. He ran away."

"So, _go get him_ ," John repeats.

John hangs up on him, and Dean doesn't know where he's supposed to even start searching for Sam. How long has he been gone? Which way did he go? How is he getting to his destination?

Where is his destination?

He pulls himself to his feet and makes his way back to the Impala, readying for a long night of searching for _anything_.

Sam knows where he's going.

It's Dean who's lost.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review and let me know if this is worth continuing!


	2. One Year Gone

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** This chapter goes over a year. There will be multiple time skips, but there will also be years where more important events happen. A Flagstaff AU. Sam keeps running, Dean doesn't find him.

* * *

 _The first year._

Home has never been a place for Sam, but that doesn't keep away homesickness during the first weeks he spends on his own. Every time he passes a phone booth, he has to fight against the urge to call Dean.

He stays in Flagstaff, Arizona for a week before he moves on. His fight or flight instinct is going haywire, and he can't stop feeling like he's being followed, or at least watched. So, he never stays in one place for too long. He makes his way across the country, putting his hustling skills to good use or finding odd jobs until he has enough money to move again.

The only ID he has is a student ID from the last school Dean enrolled him in. That feels like a lifetime ago, now, and Dean's features are starting to blur in his mind. He knows he'd be able to recognize Dean if he sees him, but his memories of Dean become shapeless. His memories of his dad are even more faded, but he doesn't have many of those memories to begin with.

As much as he wants to go to school, he can't. He's a minor. He's not emancipated. He doesn't stay in one place long enough, and it'd make it easy for Dean and his dad to find him if they can figure out which city and school he might be going to and contact the school's office to verify that information.

He's not willing to take that risk. Because of that, he escapes the lifestyle that was killing him by adapting a lifestyle that's all too similar.

There has to be a better way. There has to be an answer somewhere. He just knows that the answer doesn't lie with the people he left behind.

The people he knows he must have hurt with his abrupt departure, but he hopes that they understand why he left. He's not like them. He's not the person they need him to be. He'll never be that person, and they're better off without him.

They're safer without him.

He stays longer than he intended to in California. He loves the smell of the ocean in the breeze. He loves the sunshine and the warmth. The laid-back attitude of the people there. While he worries about running into his family when they're on a hunt, he can't bring himself to leave the small paradise he's found.

He can't get a legitimate job, but he works with a sympathetic librarian to start a tutoring service in one of the library's conference rooms in the evenings, all the advanced placement classes he's taken paying off. And he manages to make enough to live in a shitty motel room without going to bed on an empty stomach, and he supposes that's as much as he can ask for.

Barbara greets him as he walks into the library to prepare for that evening's tutoring sessions.

"Three students coming this time, Sam," she says. "Looks like they're all in the same math class and struggling. I saw them yesterday at one of the tables and noticed how frustrated they seemed, so I offered them your services."

Sam grins at her. "Thanks, Barbara."

"You don't have to thank me, dear. I'm happy to help."

Barbara is kindly and far from the strict stereotypical librarian (although, she does put her hair in that neat sort of bun most days). She doesn't ask him questions about his lifestyle, but he sees them in her eyes. The burning desire to know why he isn't in school and why he doesn't seek out a more stable job.

But she doesn't ask, and he's grateful to her for that and more.

Sam leaves the door to the library's conference room open so that the students who want his help can see him in there, and he settles in to wait for them. He accepts cash only, paid upfront before he helps. But he's a little lenient on that with students he's helped multiple times. Students who have proven to him that they'll pay what they owe the next time they seek help. It isn't the best way to live, and he wishes that he could help every student who wants help, but he has to survive.

Survival requires money.

So, when his new students walk in and all of them remembered his payment, he's more than happy to help them out, knowing that he'll be able to afford to stay that many more days.

* * *

He doesn't know when or where it happens, but when he gets back to his motel room, his wallet is missing from his backpack. It's already late and his legs are sore from spending his day walking around the city, but he pulls his backpack on again and leaves.

He's always heard that people are supposed to retrace their steps when they lose something, but he's pretty sure that his wallet has been stolen, not lost.

Deciding that it's worth a shot anyway, he spends his night searching the streets for his wallet, but he returns empty-handed when the sun is just starting to rise.

He left knowing that things would be difficult on his own, but couldn't life give him a break just this once? He can't hustle like Dean, and he can't live off hustling if he plans on sticking around in one place for a while. Not unless he wants to deal with angry bar patrons who'd be glad to beat him bloody and take their money back.

He lies on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. He has no identification. He has no money. He's not living the life he wants because he doesn't have the means to. He doesn't have the means to enroll in school, and eventually move on to college. Earn a degree. Find a wife. Have a mortgage and a few kids.

A matter of months, and he's no closer to anything he left in search of.

There has to be a better way.

* * *

Two weeks.

Two fucking weeks, and he's lost Sam's trail completely.

He knows only two things.

One: Sam _was_ in Flagstaff, Arizona. Was.

Two: Sam is no longer in Flagstaff, and Dean has no idea where he's gone since.

He makes a trip to the local library of wherever he is, using a computer to search for Sam's name every day, hoping that something comes up to give him a clue. Hoping that he doesn't find an obituary.

It's when he's two weeks into his fruitless search that his phone rings, and he has to face his mistakes. Because he knows that it's his dad calling, not Sam.

Never Sam, because Sam ran away. Sam didn't want to be part of their family. He didn't want to be near them. Hell, he must really hate them if he couldn't even take the time to write a note.

He takes a deep breath before he answers.

"Did you find him?" John asks. His voice is harsh, but there's a tension in it from his worry over Sam's disappearing act.

"No," Dean says. "I tracked him to Flagstaff, but I can't find where he went next. It's like he vanished."

"How could you let this happen, Dean?" John asks, "I trusted you to keep an eye on him."

This is Fort Douglas all over again, but worse. He's not sure that his dad will ever look at him without disappointment shining bright in his eyes. He won't be able to earn his father's trust back. Not this time.

"I don't know," Dean says. "I don't know. He should've been safe, but how could we miss him getting ready to leave like this?"

"Look, Caleb called and he needs our help on a hunt. I want you to meet me at Pastor Jim's."

"But what about Sam?"

"We'll talk about that in person."

"But shouldn't we keep looking for him?" Dean asks. He can't just give up on his brother.

"If you can't pick up on his trail, then by the time I get there, it'll be even colder," John says. "We'll talk about it when you get here."

The call ends and Dean hangs his head. There's a foreboding feeling enveloping him, and the last thing he wants to do is face his father after this failure.

* * *

Dean can't look at his father as he sits on the couch, listening to John's footsteps as he paces in front of him.

"How could you let this happen?" John asks.

His voice is level, and that makes it eerie. Dean almost wishes that John would just yell at him and get it over with. Tear him a new one and sideline him from hunting because he can't be trusted. Put him on Sammy hunting duty because he should've been watching Sam in the first place, and now Sam's gone.

"He's sixteen, Dad. I thought that he'd be fine if I went out for a bit," Dean says. It's a weak excuse, and he knows it.

"Well, you obviously thought wrong," John says. "What if something gets him because we're not there? He's vulnerable on his own, and you _know_ that he's a magnet for the supernatural."

"Then, why are we _here_?" Dean asks. "Why aren't we out looking for him instead of going on a hunt?"

"Because we don't have a way to fucking track Sam. If he doesn't want to be found, then we won't find him."

John sinks into the couch beside him and buries his head in his hands with an exhausted, world-weary sigh. "Go upstairs, Dean."

Dean's smart enough to know when to shut his mouth and do what he's told.

* * *

Their hunt with Caleb using Pastor Jim's place as a base goes smoothly enough, but Dean can't stop thinking about Sam the entire time. Sure, he ran away, but what if something's happened since? What if he's been hurt and needs help? What if something supernatural _had_ gotten to him when he least expected it?

There are so many unknowns in his life now, that Dean can't relax anymore. His sleep is choppy, at best. Non-existent, at worst. He eats without tasting his food. He keeps to himself, drained of his cocky attitude and overconfidence.

And still, he searches Sam's name in the web browser of any computer he can access every day, hoping. Hope is all they have.

Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. Those months add up to one year since Sam ran away, and they aren't any closer to knowing where he might be.

So they hunt, and they try to find anything they can that might lead to him. John leaves Dean behind more and more often, but Dean understands. He isn't trustworthy. He's distracted.

When John is around, he's drunk more often. The times when he's drunk are some of the only times he talks anymore.

"He's probably dead by now," he says. He's half-sitting, half-lying on the couch and surrounded by empty beer bottles. "It's been a year."

"Don't say that," Dean says. "He can't be dead. He… He can't be."

That isn't a possibility, because Dean's going to find Sam. He's going to find him alive and well, and then he's going to throttle him for running and work out why he ran in the first place.

It dawns on Dean why his dad is exceptionally drunk today. It's been exactly one year since Sam disappeared. He's drinking like it's November Second, because he's drinking to commemorate the loss of Sam. He's acting like Sam's already dead.

That's enough to sap some of Dean's hope. How can his dad give up already? It's Sam.

It's _Sam._

Dean flops onto one of the beds and stares at the ceiling. Sam's absence hurts more each day he's gone, and there's a piece of him that grows more hollow.

He's seventeen now. His birthday passed, and Dean wasn't there to celebrate it with him. They didn't share a bucket of extra crispy chicken for Thanksgiving. They didn't scrap together what they could for Christmas.

Is he eating well? Is he hurting? Is he surviving, but struggling? Is he lonely?

Does he miss them?

Is he even alive?

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	3. Crashing Down

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _The Second Year_.

When Dean was seventeen, Sam always thought he looked like he was on top of the world. The right to use the Impala when their dad teamed up with another hunter and didn't need it. As many dates as he could fit into the time they were in any particular town because all the women wanted him. A zest for life that filled any room he was in with his glow.

Sam was alone most of the time during those days, and now that he's seventeen, he can't figure out the appeal. He barely makes enough money from tutoring to stay in a shitty motel, and having a full stomach is a luxury. He never found his wallet, and his only form of ID is gone along with it. Any hope he had of getting a driver's license is gone, and by extension any hope he had of getting a car is gone with it.

Life… really sucks. The temptation to call Dean and beg him to take him back is almost overwhelming at times, but he's not sure his family even wants him back. He only made their lives harder, and now that he's been gone for over a year they're probably glad he left. They probably realize how much better off they are without him.

But he knows that he's good at research. He's great at researching. Maybe… maybe that's enough. Maybe he can prove that he's useful for something.

He slips into the next phone booth that he sees and takes a deep breath before putting some coins into it and dialing Dean's cell phone number. He doesn't know what he'll say or what he can say. He doesn't know if Dean will be willing to listen to him, but this is the only hope he has.

"The number you're trying to reach has been disconnected."

What? No. No, that can't be right.

With numb fingers, Sam places the phone back onto the receiver and inserts more coins. He just dialed the number wrong, he tells himself. He'll be careful and take his time, making sure that he hits the right numbers in the right order.

"The number you're trying to reach has been disconnected."

The phone falls from his trembling hand, and he makes no move to pick it up and put it back in its proper spot. It's the most he can do to get out of the booth and start the walk back to his motel room without breaking down in ugly sobs and wailing. Not that it matters much if he makes a scene at this point.

Of course, in their line of work, it's not unusual to have to get new cell phones frequently. They get lost or damaged, or they might have a run-in with the local police.

But did that have to happen now of all times?

He slips into his room and sinks onto the middle of his bed. He doesn't try to stop the tears that slide down his cheeks. He doesn't try to steady his hitched breaths.

He's well and truly cut off from his family. He has no way of contacting them, so he's stuck on his own whether he wants to be or not.

* * *

By the time he leaves and heads to the library for another evening of tutoring, his despair has turned into a cold emptiness. It's difficult to understand what the point is or why he's still trying. He needs money for food and shelter, but what if he just stops? What if he just gives up and admits his defeat?

His feet scrape against the sidewalk as he drags one in front of the other and makes small bits of progress in moving forward. Why bother? Maybe he should tell Barbara that he's done with tutoring and she shouldn't bother helping him anymore.

People push past him, but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't feel anything, and it's to the point that he's making his way to the library purely on muscle memory since his body has stopped registering the world around him.

Maybe, if he had talked and made Dean listen before he left, they could've worked something out. Maybe he could've made Dean realize that the lives they lived were killing him, and he didn't want to be part of that anymore.

But Dean… Dean would've sided with their dad's view that they needed to save people and their job wasn't over until they finally killed the thing that killed Mom.

The problem is that Sam never knew his mom. He was a baby when she died, so he never had the chance to form an attachment to her like his brother and father. They don't understand that their fight isn't his fight.

How did his life become so much of a mess?

His thoughts are becoming vines, wrapping around him and tripping him.

But it isn't an invisible hindrance that hurts him. No, he feels a pair of real hands push him. He stumbles into the road, twisting just enough to see a man grinning at him with pure black eyes before the world turns white in blinding pain. He hears screeching cars horns and grinding metal.

Then, everything fades black, and he welcomes the emptiness.

* * *

Dean stares at the papers taped on the walls of his motel room. His dad had gone out to get some dinner, but he doesn't put it past his father to have made a side stop for a few drinks. It's a wonder that the man can still get drunk given the amount of liquor he's training his body to handle.

The papers are just part of another hunt. A regular hunt with no ties to Sam or where he could be, if he's still anywhere at all. It's just a case of missing campers in California, and it's probably just a werewolf case. The lunar cycles match the disappearances, and there are abandoned cabins in the area that would make perfect hideouts for some less-than-humans beasts.

They arrived in the area only a week or so ago, and Dean can't stop thinking about how much Sam would love it there. The sunshine. The ocean and the smell of salt water on the breeze. Those are the little things that Sam always appreciated.

And Dean didn't understand why until after Sam was gone.

If Sam was still with them, Dean would've set aside a day or two and taken him to the beach. Plan a small break where they could enjoy what the local area had to offer. Maybe even take a stab at surfing.

He would do the things he should've done over a year ago when Sam was still with them. The things that maybe would've been enough to keep Sam from running and show him that he mattered. That he was loved, even if they never vocalized it.

He doesn't want to sound like he's given up hope, but it's hard to hold onto the possibility that Sam is still alive, especially when that's all John has to say when the topic of Sam comes up. His daily web searches for Sam have become weekly searches, and he has yet to find anything.

He wonders if Sam has looked for them since running, but he doubts it. Why would he? _How_ could he, if they're always moving? How could he ever contact them when they have to get new cell phones every few months and masquerade under new identities in every town.

That thought leads him down a trail of thoughts that he doesn't like at all. What if something bad happened to Sam, and he hasn't been able to contact them because he doesn't know _how_ to anymore?

If that's the case, then if Sam is… if he's dead, it's their fault.

John comes back into the room, and Dean suppresses the tears that were building up at the thought they could be responsible for Sam dying. If he's dead, Dean reminds himself. He could very much still be alive and off living the life they couldn't give him.

If Sam's still alive, Dean hopes he's happy.

"Weren't many options since we're low on cash, but you've never been a picky eater," John says, handing one bag to Dean and keeping the other for himself.

"I'm sure we can find some bars around here that are prime for hustling."

"Yeah," John says.

It's difficult to believe that John used to have fire within him. He had purpose beyond one hunt after another. He used to be driven by more than routine and a twisted sense of duty.

But now, he's down to half the family he started with, and Dean is thinking that it isn't enough. It was hard enough for him to lose Mary, but losing Sam, too? And losing Sam because it was Sam's _choice_ to leave them?

No, John has had so much drained from him that he isn't a man that Dean recognizes anymore.

"So, werewolf?" Dean asks.

"Looks like it. The full moon is coming up again in a few nights, too."

"No bodies are ever found, what do you think the werewolf does with them?" Dean asks. "It's usually just missing hearts."

"No, there were few bodies found," John says. He points at some of the older articles. "My guess is the bastard wised up and figured out that he needs to hide the bodies or get rid of them in some way. The scariest creatures out there are the ones who can learn to hide."

Dean steps away from the mess of papers and opens the bag handed to him for food. He understands what it's like to feel alone now, and he wonders if this is the way Sam felt before he ran.

He wishes he could have the chance to apologize. He never meant to push Sam away. To make him run. He should've spent more time with Sam. He should've paid more attention to him.

"Well, I guess it's up to us to find him," Dean says, unsure as to whether he's talking about the werewolf or Sam.

John nods, and neither of them say much more that night.

* * *

Trekking through the woods is not Dean's favorite part of any hunt, but sometimes it's necessary. The layer of sweat that built up on his skin in the uncomfortably humid air feels like it's helping the dirt and grime stick to him.

He almost fools himself into believing he hears Sam's voice in the wind as it rustles leaves and tree branches, asking why they always had to find the hunts that required hiking through the woods.

What he wouldn't give to have Sam there. He could bitch all he wanted, and Dean would let him. He could yell, hit, scream insults, and anything else he wanted. Just as long as he was there to do it.

John stops, and Dean follows his lead, waiting and listening to the area around them.

"You hear that?"

Dean doesn't want to say that he hadn't heard anything because he was too busy being lost in his thoughts, but at the same time, John doesn't seem to expect him to answer as he starts moving forward again.

They come to one of the abandoned cabins, and Dean hears what John must have. Shuffling. The dragging of something heavy, perhaps. Sounds that are somewhere between human and beast, but not distinct enough to be clearly one or the other.

John looks back at Dean and nods, and Dean readies his gun. If the werewolf is feeding or trying to hide his evidence, then it'll be that much easier to kill him.

Dean follows John's lead as he kicks the door in and steps into the house. He doesn't even see the werewolf before he hears a series of gunshots and the substantial thud that only a large body hitting the ground can produce.

The lights in the cabin don't work, so Dean swaps his gun for a flashlight.

The cabin is dusty around the edges of the room, where the werewolf is less likely to spend much time. There are cobwebs in almost every corner, and dried bloodstains all over the floor. In the middle of the room is the werewolf, and his latest victim, a woman with her eyes still open and her mouth set in a silent scream. Her chest has a gaping hole where her heart once was, and the blood sluggishly drips down her side.

Dean feels like he's always a little too late. This woman is dead, but if they were an hour or so earlier, she'd be alive.

Sam is gone, but if Dean had paused and actually talked to him, maybe he'd still be with them.

"Look around and see if there are others, I'm gonna start taking care of the bodies," John says.

Dean nods, and slowly moves away from the bloody scene in the center of the room. He's not squeamish, but walking in on monsters with victims always leaves him unsettled, like he could've saved an innocent life.

The beam of the flashlight roams over ancient wood and he kicks up dust as he moves. There are small things on the ground, probably items from previous victims that were dropped either in an escape attempt or when the werewolf moved their bodies. Things like loose change, a tube of lipstick, and the stub of a movie ticket. Things that were signs of a life taken too soon.

He doesn't bother picking any of those things up; he doesn't see any point in it. Until he spots a card in the adjacent room that looks a little familiar, but he can't pinpoint why. He picks it up, brushes the thick layer of dust from it, and his heart nearly stops.

 _Samuel Winchester: Grade 10_

Dean falls to his knees, and the impact reverberates through his bones. This has to be a trick or a cruel prank. That's Sam's picture. That's his name. He looks so unhappy having to have another school picture taken for a student ID he'll barely use, but Dean can't remember the last time he saw Sam looking anything other than discontent, at best, before he left.

He's forgotten how to breathe, but he's not sure he cares to remember.

Sam's…

Sam is… he's…

Dead.

* * *

 **A/N:** Two cliffhangers? Yes!

I think that we're going to start being in the years for more than one chapter, but I will continue to put which year at the beginning of each chapter.

Also, there's a poll on my profile that gives 3 route choices for Sam. I couldn't decide which path I wanted to take for this story as I like each of them, so I figured that I'd let the readers choose! Head on over and give your input!

Please leave a review!


	4. Only Darkness Remains

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** Thank you to those who participated in the poll to decide Sam's route! The winner was the amnesiac route!

* * *

 _The Second Year._

He doesn't feel much at all. In fact, he's unnaturally numb to the point that the world feels far away. There are sounds around him. One is a beep that keeps time with his heart. He hears footsteps that are too distant to be in the same room. They approach, then they continue on. People passing by. There's the monotonous drone of TV, words with no meaning filling his ears from it.

His mouth has that swampy feeling that comes after a long nap, and he wouldn't be opposed to some ice water. In fact, he would welcome ice water. That thought is enough to make him drag his eyes open.

While he knows that he's in a hospital, he can't remember why or how he got there. Trying to figure it out makes his head ache, and brings to light the fact that not only can he not remember what happened to him, he can't remember _anything._ His head feels like it's going to collapse in on itself as he scratches the walls of his memory, trying to find the smallest scrap. A name. A place. A person.

The beeping becomes more frequent as his heart rate increases. He has trouble breathing, and his vision starts to blur around the edges.

There are rushing footsteps and a soothing woman's voice, but he doesn't register more than that. As it becomes easier to breathe, he finds himself fully slipping back into darkness.

* * *

The next time he finds his way back to consciousness, there's the sound of a tapping foot nearby. Then, the sound stops.

"Sam?" a voice asks. A deep voice, and one that he doesn't recognize.

He takes a deep breath of chemical-scented air, opens his eyes, and turns his head on the pillow to face a man sitting in a chair beside his bed.

"How are you feeling, son?" the man asks. He has neatly trimmed dark hair with streaks of grey. Wrinkles outline the features of his clearly aged face, around his eyes and mouth, giving him a mild-mannered look. When he talks, his mustache, more grey than dark brown, moves with the words. He wears the sort of suit jacket that has pads on the elbows, their color so different from that of the suit that they draw attention to themselves.

Overall, the man appears kind enough. He appears normal enough. But there's something about him that's not right. He uses the name 'Sam' and calls him 'son'.

"Who are you?"

The man's face is awfully calm, and Sam (that name is the only thing that feels right) feels his stomach twisting.

"You know you shouldn't joke about something like that, Sam," he says.

"I'm not joking. I don't… I don't remember anything."

The man nods, still not showing much of an emotional reaction (which Sam knows can't be right), and he presses the call button.

It doesn't take long for a nurse to stroll in and ask what the problem is.

"My son seems to be unable to remember anything," the man says.

"I'll let the doctor know," the nurse says, "but it isn't unheard of for patients to suffer from amnesia after experiencing such traumatic events, and he did take quite the knock to his head."

She leaves, and Sam is still left feeling like nothing is quite right. There's a sense of apprehension eating at him, and he knows that it goes beyond amnesia.

"What happened?" he asks.

The man (his father?) says, "You were on your way to one of your study groups, and you were hit by a truck. The bystanders actually say that it looked like you threw yourself in front of it. I only arrived when the paramedics were already prepping you for transport to the hospital. You forgot your wallet, and I was going to bring it to you in case you needed it."

The man takes a bi-fold wallet from one of his jacket's pockets and hands it to Sam. Sam's right arm refuses to move, and his left arm struggles, but he manages to grab it.

He can't lift himself up, but the man opens the wallet and pulls out a card, holding it so Sam can see it. It's a driver's license with a photo (him?) and the name 'Samuel Burroughs' written on it.

"I don't know how to drive," Sam says.

"That's just the memory loss. It'll come back," the man says. "If not, we'll teach you again."

The man puts the license back into the wallet and takes it from Sam's hand. "I'll hold onto this for now," he says.

"How bad?" Sam asks.

"Are your injuries?"

Sam nods.

"Well, you have a lot of bumps and bruises, of course. You were hit on the right side, which led to a broken arm, broken femur, and broken ribs. The driver must've been going pretty fast," the man says. "You took a nasty knock to the head, too. They were worried that you might have a brain bleed, but it looks like that was avoided, at least."

"How long will I be here?" Sam asks.

"That's for the doctor to decide," the man says. "I'm sure he'll be in soon, once the nurse tells him that you're awake and having memory problems."

Sam settles himself again, closing his eyes. He's so tired, and half of his body won't move, leaving him to do much more than sleep.

"Your mother has been out of her mind with worry," the man says. "And she'll be upset that you didn't wake up until after she left to shower and get a few hours of sleep."

Sam doesn't answer. Something about that isn't right. It might be the lack of memories leaving him uneasy, but he knows— _he knows—_ that there's something wrong. 'Burroughs' isn't his name. It doesn't feel right, not like 'Sam'.

The man claiming to be his father has been eerily calm throughout their brief conversation, showing no alarm or concern over Sam's lack of memories. His pieces of conversation came off as clinical, unemotional. Maybe he's a doctor, or that's just part of who he is, but there's something more than that.

Sam falls into a drug induced sleep, but his last thought is clear despite his hazy mind.

This is not his life.

* * *

Dean doesn't have the energy to stand, so he stays on his knees and stares at the student ID held in his shaking hands. There's no point in moving, not when his world has faded to grey around him. Not when everything that mattered to him is gone. Any hope that he had of finding Sam again was dashed by one little card.

Sam is dead. Dean will never find him, because he isn't there to be found. He's gone. Forever.

What was the last thing that Dean said to him? No matter how hard he tries, he can't remember. Was he angry? Dismissive? Did he say something scathing? Did he ignore Sam completely?

Then, he remembers that Sam didn't even leave a note when he left. They drove him away, thinking that there would always be another chance to include him. Another chance to make time for him.

They sent him to his death.

It's hard to breath. There's something squeezing his organs, and he's dying on the inside. And he's okay with that. Nothing feels worthwhile anymore, knowing that the person who meant more to him than anyone is gone.

It's worse than realizing Sam ran away, because then he could still hold onto the hope that he'd find Sam. Well, he's found a relic of Sam that points to a terrible fate.

"Dean?" John asks. "Dean, what are you doing?"

Dean barely registers John crouching beside him, but he hands the student ID over, moving on autopilot.

Then, John is helping him to his feet and settling him in the passenger seat of the Impala. He doesn't pay much attention to the world around him, not seeing any point in doing so.

"I've taken care of what needs to be done," John says, his voice steady and hard. "Time to head out."

* * *

The trip back to the motel passes in a blur, and Dean finds himself staring at the ceiling while lying on his bed without remembering leaving the Impala. He barely remembers leaving the cabin, and he wonders where Sam's student ID ended up after he handed it to John.

There's a gnawing feeling inside of him that he needs to hold onto the ID. He needs to keep it. He needs to protect it the way he couldn't protect the person to whom it belonged. It's irrational, and it's just an object, but he needs _something_. Anything.

His hand snakes up and grips the bronze charm of his amulet. Years ago, Sam gave it to him. Now, it has importance beyond being a symbol of Sam's trust in him. It's one of the few things he has to hold onto from Sam. It's one of the few things he has to prove that Sam once lived. That he once had a brother, and he wasn't just a memory.

His mattress dips down as his father sits on the edge, and it takes all of Dean's energy to turn his head to look at him. When did he get so tired? He's never felt this exhausted before, not even after the most excruciating and demanding of hunts.

"Dean…"

John looks older. If Dean didn't know better, he'd say the reddening in John's eyes was from crying. He doesn't recall John crying at any point since the cabin, but he can't trust his own memories of the night.

If only he could wake up. If only this was all a nightmare, and he'd find Sam peacefully sleeping in the opposite bed.

"Dean, we… we avenged him," John says. His normally stoic exterior crumbles, and his voice cracks on the words.

"If we'd found the hunt earlier," Dean says. His throat constricts and keeps any other words he might have said trapped.

"We couldn't have known that he'd be in the area," John says. He doesn't sound defensive, just defeated.

"We should've looked harder. We should've… we should've never let him go," Dean says.

His words take on a hysterical edge, and he tries to get up and get out of the room, but John holds him back with a bear hug. Dean's too weak to put much effort into breaking free, and his hysteria turns into sobs, the tears he tried holding back breaking forth in force.

"We drove him away, Dad," he says. "He left because of us, and now he's dead. We can never fix this. The werewolf should've just torn _my_ heart out, too."

John starts off with trying to calm him using unfinished sentences and half-spoken thoughts, but then he breaks down the same as Dean. They become a sobbing, broken mess. The remaining half of a family too ruined to be repaired. They're the ones left behind.

And Dean doesn't think that they'll ever be much more than that again.

* * *

Dean manages to get a few hours of restless sleep. His dreams are filled with Sam. He watches him die again and again, his heart ripped from his chest by a faceless werewolf right in front of his eyes, but he can't do a damn thing to save him.

He doesn't know if John's dreams were as cruel, and John doesn't say anything about the night.

He hurts. He's tired, but sleep doesn't appeal to him. Not when he sees Sam's empty eyes staring at him in silent accusation every time he falls asleep.

He looks around the room instead, but nothing motivates him to get up or do anything other than lie there. When he glances at the window and sees the sun streaming into the room, he balls his hands into fists in irrational anger.

How dare the world keep spinning? How dare the sun illuminate such a dark day? It's not fair. None of it is fair, and there's nothing for Dean to do about it.

For the first time, he feels absolutely helpless. He can't change anything that's happened. He can't make this better.

He gets out of bed only for the sake of using the restroom, and then he lies back down. While he's lying, he keeps his eyes closed and tries to surround himself in darkness.

Sam is in darkness. The thought comes unbidden, but once it's in his mind, it refuses to leave. Dean doesn't believe in Heaven. He doesn't believe in a God or in angels, like his mother. He's seen enough ghosts to know that they exist, and there's something after life, but he can't help thinking that once they move on from Earth, only darkness awaits them.

Ghosts.

What if Sam… What if Sam isn't at rest? Are they supposed to dig up the forest trying to figure out where the werewolf hid the bodies of his victims so they can burn the bodies?

Dean sits up, and sees John at the kitchenette's table drinking coffee. The complimentary grounds have most likely gone bad months ago, if not years. This isn't the kind of place that considers upkeep to be a priority.

He never heard John get up. He never heard him make coffee in the shitty little coffee pot. His sense of time is completely skewed, but that doesn't bother him as much as it would before the events of last night.

"Dad?" Dean asks. He sounds like he hasn't spoken in a long time, his voice raspy and weak.

John looks at him.

"What if he's not at rest? What if Sammy's…?"

John takes a deep breath and shakes his head. "I don't know," he says. "We can't… It'd be impossible to try and find his body without campers or hikers stumbling upon us and wondering what's going on with the amount of area we'd have to cover. We don't even know if the werewolf was burying the bodies or what he could've been doing to cover-up his true nature."

Dean falls back onto his bed, and his organs turn to ice. They can't even give Sam peace if he's become stuck between life and death. They can't even do something that small for Sam, because they don't have the knowledge of what happened to his body.

He won't get the hunter's funeral he deserves.

Dean feels the weight of his failure as if it's physical, keeping him pinned. Crushing him. Tears start to fall down the sides of his face from eyes that he thought had dried up after the amount of sobbing the night before. Sam deserved better than him. He deserved a brother who listened and cared instead of one who ran off to the bar or went skirt chasing any chance he got.

"We'll head to Pastor Jim's tomorrow," John says. "There's nothing more for us here."

He knows that John is telling the truth, but Dean doesn't want to leave. He wants to go back to the werewolf's cabin and wait for Death to reunite him with Sammy.

He died alone, with only a monster to witness it, but that doesn't mean he has to stay alone. Dean will keep him company, whether it's in the darkness or as a spirit tied to Earth.

Sam doesn't have to be alone.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	5. Uncertain Beginnings

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. I'm also not a doctor, so I try to keep anything medical on the vague side.

* * *

 _The Second Year_

They tried to wean him off the strong medications, but it left him in tears due to the amount of pain that encompassed his body. Even his back felt like it was on fire—though he couldn't remember which injury would leave his back burning—and he'd rather risk addiction than bear with the pain.

So, he's back to flying high on drugs strong enough to make him forget he's even alive. It's the only way he stands the company of his overbearing parents, and his mother who can't stop drilling every doctor and nurse that enters his room. They aren't questions that he thinks a normal parent would ask. She seems anxious to get him out of the hospital as soon as possible.

Wouldn't a normal parent want to keep him there until they were beyond sure that he's going to survive?

It's one of many little things that raise suspicion about his parents. Maybe they just don't care that much about him, and they're forced to pretend they do as long as he's in the hospital.

But the list of things he can't do is longer than the list of things he _can_ , yet she still presses to have him released. It's going to be a long recovery, and he's going to need a lot of help with everyday activities. He's going to be dependent on them, and she wants to remove him from an environment where he's taken care of around the clock?

It just… doesn't make sense. Not with the reluctant way his mom and dad give him a hug once visiting hours are over and they go home for the day. Not with the way their smiles appear to be plastered on, lacking any sense of being genuine. Not with the glances they shoot at him when they think he isn't paying attention.

No, they aren't the kind to want to baby their child. He doesn't remember what they're like, but the way they act makes him nervous to go home with them (well, his father seems alright in comparison to his mother so far, but there's still something off about him). Sirens are going off in his head, but there's nothing he can do to get away from them. With no memories, he isn't credible when he says that this isn't right. How would he know what _is_ right?

His mom walks into the room with a styrofoam cup in one hand, her heels tapping against the tiled floor. Her hair is harshly pulled back into a bun, kept away from her face, which is all harsh edges where soft curves should be. Her wrinkles give her an angry expression, whereas his dad's make him look like a man with a pleasant demeanor. She's bold, wearing distinct colors instead of the neutrals his dad seems to favor.

His dad made her seem like a kindly woman, the overbearing mother. The kind of woman who'd always be waiting at home with fresh baked goods and a warm smile. But she isn't. He has a hard time imagining her as someone who was out of her head with worry, or as someone who would be upset that her child woke up in the hospital when she wasn't there.

"You'd think with the amount hospitals bill people they'd be able to afford decent coffee," his mom says.

His dad shakes his head with a smile. "You don't need more coffee, dear."

They sound normal enough, but even with the haze of drugs, Sam's stomach knots itself in their presence.

What if they're abusers? What if they're neglectful? He'll never survive in their care if they're either, not when he can barely move.

His mother sighs and looks at Sam. "Are you feeling any better, Sam?"

Sam shakes his head. He's numb to the point that his tongue is too big to form words, because he's so reliant on the painkillers being pumped into his veins, he's left in tears every time they try to reduce his dosages (can't have him forming a dependence now can they?). His body just can't handle it yet.

"Well, I doubt they'll be letting you out of here anytime soon either way," she says.

He's too tired to try and figure out the meaning behind her words. Is it the money that's her concern? Is his treatment too expensive for them to afford?

He doesn't remember his life before getting hit by a truck, but he can't stop himself from wishing that the impact had killed him.

* * *

Most of the time, he floats somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. It's a peaceful place, where pain can't reach him and the terrible realities of life are far away.

He hears his parents talking when he tips closer to consciousness. Their voices are dulled, like he's underwater, but he can make out what they're saying if he tries hard enough.

"You need to try to care about more than money, Linda. He needs to love us."

"Why did _I_ get stuck with the female meat bag? All I hear is her screaming about her fucking money, Gary, how am I supposed to think clearly with that racket?"

Sam tries to push through to full consciousness, but he can't quite make it. He needs to love them? Female meat bag? She's screaming? Who? Who is she? Why? What's going on?

"I don't care how you do it, just do it. You know what happens if we can't pull this off."

"Not for sure, I don't. You say he'd kill us, but how do you know that? Why would he do that?"

"Why _wouldn't_ he, Linda? He hates our kind more than humans. If Azazel—"

"Shit, I think he's waking up."

Sam blinks a few times, his eyelids heavy and his vision blurred. The piece of conversation he picked up doesn't make any sense to him, and he's already forgetting what they said. The words fly out of his reach before he can grab them. And he knows they're important words, so he tries all the harder to hold onto them.

And they slip away that much quicker.

* * *

Dean sits in the Impala, and it's the last place he wants to be. Any place that's on Earth is the last place he wants to be, but he presses his forehead against the window and lets his dad drive on through the night with his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel.

He tried to sneak out of the motel room more times than he could count, but John blocked him at every point until he decided that neither of them were getting sleep that night. So, they hit the road.

In silence.

He can almost pretend that Sam is sleeping in the backseat, but he knows that if he looks behind him, the space will be empty.

He squeezes his eyes shut. There are questions that keep running through his head, but he knows he'll never have answers for them.

Did Sam die thinking that they didn't care about him? Did he die struggling to live, or did he give up at the end and let the werewolf kill him? Did he have any regrets? What were they?

Once he runs through the same questions over and over, his mind reverts to a single mantra: he failed. He failed Sam. He failed the one person whom he was supposed to protect.

He failed, and he can't fix it. He can't fix it. He can't fix it.

* * *

Pastor Jim looks at him with pity, and he hates it. He doesn't want pity; he wants his little brother back.

They'll stay with him for… a while, he supposes. Until they can pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, but those pieces will never fit together again. Not when the most important ones are missing.

"John… Dean… I can't even begin to express how sorry I am for your loss," Pastor Jim says. "The world feels so much darker without Sam's light."

Dean bites his tongue, keeping back tears that he thought had all dried up. Pastor Jim doesn't get to talk about how dark the world feels without Sam. He doesn't understand this loss like they do, and the worst part is that he was gone for a year by the time they found anything related to his whereabouts. Who knows how long it was before he died?

What if he ran straight to California and died in the first weeks of his absence? He may have been dead for months before they found out, and what if he would've changed his mind and come back to them?

"Thanks for letting us stay, Jim," John says.

"Of course. I could never turn away you or your… or Dean."

He was going to say 'your boys', and they all know it. It's like having a bullet hole that someone keeps sticking their finger into and wiggling it around, they keep getting reminded of their loss before it can heal. There is no scab to tear off yet, because it hasn't had time to form.

Pastor Jim clears his throat to save them from the suffocating silence. "Well, come in and make yourselves at home. I've got some soup in the slow cooker. It's nothing fancy, but it's easy on unsettled stomachs."

They follow him into the house, neither willing to say much. That's the nice thing about Pastor Jim. He deals with grief so often, it doesn't bother him anymore. Of course, Sam's death hits him harder than the death of those in his congregation or their loved ones, but he understands that people don't act like themselves in their grief.

Dean gets his own room. He tosses his stuff on the foot of one bed. Once he closes the door, he leans his back against it, sinking lower and lower until he's sitting.

He has his own room, and that's so wrong. It's the room that supposed to be shared with Sam, but there's no Sam to share it.

He knocks the back of his head against the door. How can there be a Dean without a Sam?

He knocks the back of his head against the door harder. Then, he hits it again. And again. And again.

He wants it to hurt. He wants to feel pain, because feeling anything is better than the numbness in which he's drowning.

Tears start falling down his cheeks, and then they become sobs. He makes horrible, inhuman sounds, and he barely recognizes that he's their source.

He doesn't know how long it goes on, but no one comes to stop him. No one comes to console him or try to tell him that it will be okay. That it will be better. It'll get easier.

Because it never will.

* * *

He's retrieved for dinner, eventually, but he's far from hungry. So, he sits at the table and mixes his bowl of soup with his spoon. Around and around. It's not that it looks unappetizing (it would make his mouth water in another life). He just has it stuck in his head that, if Sam can't eat, why should he?

It's not fair that he's sitting at a table having a family meal, and Sam will never have another meal. Sam will never get to have that real Thanksgiving meal with his own family that he's always dreamed of. The one time he got to celebrate a normal Thanksgiving was with a friend's family somewhere along the way, but he didn't talk much about it after Dean picked him up. He didn't talk much the rest of that night, and Dean wishes that he'd asked what happened.

"Dean, you need to eat," Pastor Jim says. His voice is gentle, like he's trying to sooth a child after a nightmare.

Only this isn't a nightmare and no amount of soothing will take away his pain.

"I'm not hungry."

"You should keep your strength up."

"For what?" Dean asks.

His dad and Pastor Jim both look shocked by the question, but his dad pulls himself together and says, "The thing that killed your mother is still out there. We got what… we got what got Sammy, but we haven't gotten that bastard yet."

"Killing that werewolf didn't make anything better. Vengeance can't bring back Mom. It didn't bring back Sammy."

"I know that," John says, "but do you want the thing that killed your mom out there ruining other families? Do you really want others to go through what you have?"

Dean shakes his head, and he shoves a spoonful of soup into his mouth. Then, another. He barely chews before swallowing, but there isn't any taste for him to savor. His taste buds are as dead as the rest of him feels, but his dad is right. They have one more mission left.

One more creature left to kill.

* * *

They have him start physical therapy the second he can stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time, but it takes weeks for him to complete the exercises to the satisfaction of the therapists, facing a set-back every time he has to undergo another surgery to align in bones in ways that will allow them to heal properly. At this point, he'll be setting off metal detectors for the rest of his life with all the rods, pins, and screws being put in his bones.

They have to teach him how to move in ways that won't hurt him. They have to teach him ways to take care of himself so that his parents won't have as much of a burden.

His parents, with their strange attempts at comfort and insincere gestures. Their oddly worded phrases and strange comments.

His mom brushes some of his hair away from his face with cold fingers. "You'll be out of here soon, Sammy."

He nods, but he still can't shake the nagging feeling that it would be better to stay in the hospital. They've been putting so much pressure on him to heal faster so he can leave the hospital, and it doesn't make sense.

He was injured badly enough that he nearly died, and they want to rush him out of a place that saved his life and continues to help him heal?

Why? What's the point? Is it money? Is he that much of a burden that they'd rather take chances with his recovery than pay the hospital to do its job?

At least, at night, it's quiet. He can breathe easier without the presence of his parents, and the TV is more than enough to keep him company.

A nurse comes in to check on him, and he wants to ask her why he still can't remember anything from before his accident. Even with all the scans done on him, the doctors have yet to find a physical reason for his amnesia. By all means, he should remember.

So, why doesn't he?

He knows that asking the nurse is useless, so he lets her do her job and leave. She doesn't have the answers. There's nothing that he can do to force himself to remember. There's no way for him to avoid going home with his parents. Parents that he isn't sure care for him more than they have to for public appearance.

He's scared. He's really, really scared of what future lies before him, and there's no way for him to shake the feeling that something's really wrong.

He's trapped.

* * *

"We're going to be gone for a while," his mom says. "We wanted to wait until you were released to move, but it might be better if we go ahead and get the new house settled for when you can join us there."

"We're moving?"

Her mouth forms a smile, but the action looks like it physically pains her. "Yes, you knew that before you ended up here. Your dad got a new job. We have to move so he can get to work."

"Those kids aren't going to teach themselves English," his dad adds in, smiling much easier and more naturally than his mother. "Although, they already know English. They just refuse to acknowledge its finesse and the power of words."

"How long will you be gone?"

They glance at each other, then his dad clears his throat and answers, "We won't be back until you're ready to be released. I have to get to work, son, and your mom needs to find a job in the area. I'm sorry, and you know we wish we could be here to support you, but we need the money and the insurance coverage from my work."

"No, I get it," Sam says. "I do. It's fine. I've already been here a long time, and I can't expect both of you to put your lives on hold because of that. I'll be okay."

He'll be relieved once they're gone. He probably shouldn't feel that way about his own parents, but he can't feel any attachment towards them. They leave him feeling like he needs to crawl out of his own skin, but it's difficult to feel comfortable when all he hears in his head is 'Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.'

"I told you he'd be fine," his mom says. "He's practically an adult."

"That doesn't mean we stop worrying about him. He'll always be our son."

There's still something strange in the way they talk to each other and to him, like there's more meaning in their words beyond what they say outright.

"Where are we moving?" Sam asks. They're in California now, but he doesn't know how much he likes it here. Maybe it's a mercy that he lost his memories before he has to move. There's nothing to say goodbye to.

"I got a job at the University of Kansas. We're moving to Lawrence," his dad says.

The word 'Lawrence' is enough to send Sam's heart into his throat, and he wishes he knew why.

* * *

Weeks pass, and he doesn't feel any less empty. He's not left alone for long, but he's not surprised. His dad knows how much Sam meant to him, and John wasn't about to risk losing his only living son. So, he prepares for the worst, and Dean knows that trying to claim he won't do anything drastic won't be reassuring to his father.

He knows how much losing him would destroy his father. While every cell in his body longs to join Sam in the afterlife, he keeps waking up morning after morning and getting out of bed for his father's sake.

He just hopes that Sam is at peace now. That he'll be okay until Dean meets up with him again.

They've made a base at Pastor Jim's, covering the walls of his guest rooms with articles and maps. While they've killed Sammy's killer, they still have to find Mary's killer.

It's a demon, John thinks. He shared the research on demons he's compiled over the years with Dean. He shared the methods he uses to find potential possessions, but he hasn't found a way to determine whether it's _the demon_ or not.

"I can't believe you kept this from… me for so long," Dean says.

John marks another 'x' on their map, somewhere in the Washington area. "Demons are nasty business, and rare. I didn't want that added to the nightmares that already come with hunting more common creatures."

"That's a terrible reason," Dean says.

"Yeah, I know," John says. He runs a hand down his face. "No matter what I do I just can't… I can't save the people I love."

Dean knows the feeling. They save strangers and reunite them with their families time after time, yet they're never in time to save the people who matter the most. First, Mom. Then, Sam.

He figures that there's a fifty percent chance he'll be next, and a fifty percent chance that his dad will be next.

"This bastard may have gotten Mary, but that doesn't mean we have to let it destroy any more families."

Dean nods. "I know, but you're going to have to tell me everything that you find out about it. I'm old enough, and I'm a good hunter."

"I know, Dean. We're in this together."

They have to be, because the hunt is the only thing keeping them sane. It's the only reason they have to keep moving forward.

Once it's over… who knows?

"Let's get started."

* * *

 **A/N:** I got carried away and kept adding more and more scenes, but thank you for all of the support on this story so far!

Please leave a review!


	6. Home Sweet Hell

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _The Second Year_

It was a long and brutal car ride, made more uncomfortable by the presence of his parents and their pieced together conversations. If Sam didn't know better, he'd say that they were opening books to random pages and quoting sections of dialogue to each other.

They could only travel for a few hours at a time before they had to find a motel for the night. Sam's still healing body couldn't handle traveling to Lawrence in one stretch.

But they made it, somehow, and Sam is lucky that his painkillers knocked him out for long chunks of the trip.

Now, he's in his new home, unable to remember his old home. The sun filters through his open window, the curtains pulled back and fluttering in the soft breeze. He's bound to his bed for the foreseeable future, with a wheelchair to get him to at least the bathroom, but the fresh air is a welcome change from the stale atmosphere of the hospital. It's refreshing, even peaceful.

Rejuvenating.

There are a few knocks on his door before it opens and his dad peeks his head in. Once he sees that Sam is awake, he steps into the room and says, "Hey, Sam. Feel up to talking for a minute?"

"I don't really have anything else to do."

His dad looks around his room and says, "Yeah, I guess you don't. Maybe we can get you something for entertainment. I actually wanted to talk to you about schooling, which would occupy at least some of your time."

"I don't think I'll be able to actually attend school anytime soon. I don't even know what I'm supposed to know in school or what it's like," Sam says.

"That's why I thought homeschooling might be appealing to you," his dad says. "You can still get your diploma, but you can work at your own pace. What do you think?"

"Sounds better than nothing."

His dad raises his hand, pauses for a moment, and ruffles Sam's hair. No claps on his shoulders, not after the last time his dad did that left him gasping to breathe through the blinding pain (of course, he would have had to clap the shoulder that Sam dislocated when he was hit by the truck). Maybe it's absentmindedness that make his parents come off as so off-beat, but he knows there has to be more to it.

There has to be.

"You need anything?"

Sam shakes his head.

"Alright. Well, you have your phone, so just call one of us if you change your mind. Otherwise, I'll bring you something to eat with your meds in a bit."

"Okay. Thanks," Sam says.

He manages to pull a small smile onto his face, and his dad returns it as he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Sam lets out the breath he unconsciously held, and his smile slips away. He turns his attention back to the world outside his window, which he is lucky enough to have facing the backyard. Watching the branches of the trees in the yard sway with the wind is relaxing.

He's lucky for more than just the nice view. His parents got him a bed with a back that can be raised and lowered, and it's large and comfortable. They let him have the bedroom with an ensuite bathroom to keep him from having to move more than absolutely necessary. From the sounds of things, it will even be his own personal classroom soon enough.

His parents leave him be most of the time, giving him space and letting him reach out to them with a new cell phone (where did his old one go?) if he needs them. While they haven't been mean or hurt him in any way, he can't stop the feeling of his skin crawling in their presence or the way the hair on the back of his neck and on his arms stands up.

No, he has as much freedom as someone in his condition can.

Then, why does he feel like a prisoner?

* * *

He drifts in and out of sleep, unable to do much more than lie around in the first place. The sky is still light at one point when he falls asleep, then it's dark the next time he's awake. The window is closed, and he guesses that one of his parents had closed it while he slept.

That… makes him more uncomfortable than it should. They're his _parents._ The idea of them being in his room while he slept shouldn't concern him.

There's a TV in his room now, continuously broadcasting whatever channel he flips to with the remote. It's small, but his mom said it was in their room and they really don't need a TV to keep them up when they could stand to get some more sleep.

It was the first conversation he can remember with his mom where she didn't bring up money in any way, shape, or form.

He feels like shit. It would feel so good to be able to roll over and lie on his side, anything other than having to remain lying on his back. His muscles are growing stiff and they beg for movement. The exercises the physical therapists gave him don't seem to help that need for motion, but it's difficult to do much with half of his body in huge, heavy casts while his broken bones heal.

He finds it doubtful, but he holds onto the slim hope that the doctor's appointment he has coming up at the local hospital will be the one where the doctor decides one or both of his casts can come off. He'll take it easy and do anything he has to if it means his arm and leg will be free.

But he's one of the unlucky ones who broke his forearm, elbow, and his femur, all of which led to two very cumbersome casts after surgeries to piece him back together properly, so he's not putting _too_ much hope into getting them removed.

No cartoon or sitcom can distract him from the misery that comes with not only his injuries, but his lack of memories as well.

Will he ever remember his childhood or who he was before the accident? Will he always feel out of place and lost?

A dull burn on his back makes him shift to try and alleviate it. That's the one pain that was never explained to him in the hospital, and it doesn't fit into being hit by a truck on his right side. Not unless he managed to get road burn on his back, but wouldn't the doctors mention something like that to him? Wouldn't they have addressed it or asked him about it?

It's not consistent, either. It flares up at random.

Maybe it's an old injury. Maybe he's fucked up his back at some point in his life that he can no longer remember.

Maybe he'll ask his parents about it, but the idea of bringing it up makes his mouth dry and his palms sweaty.

No child should be this nervous to talk about a possible injury with their parents, but he thinks that it might be better for him to leave well enough alone in this case.

One day… One day, he'll move on with his own life. He'll heal, and he'll work hard in school to earn his degree. He'll continue on… to college. Find a woman and fall in love.

Those are just dreams. Ambitions. Being trapped in a room makes them feel unreachable.

He leans back into his pillows. Lying down too far is uncomfortable. Sitting up is uncomfortable. His joints yearn to be popped and his muscles cry out for stretching.

How the hell do people lie around like this of their own will?

He closes his eyes, wondering when he's due for another dose of painkillers. He doesn't want them for the pain, but he likes the drowsiness that lets him escape the world for hours at a time.

Asleep, he doesn't spend the time wishing that the truck had killed him.

* * *

Who willingly watches daytime TV?

Sam wants the ability to move freely back just for the sake of bashing his head against the wall, because watching soap operas is becoming unbearable. The plots are so far-fetched, it isn't even funny.

People don't come back from the dead. Not every family has a complicated family tree filled with villains just waiting to reveal their evil selves.

Then again, there are some scenes that he doesn't mind so much. He watches two characters reunite, one believed dead by the other. He watches them pull each other into a hug, gripping each other like they'll be separated again if they let go. They're both crying, full grown adults sobbing and shaking.

 _I want that_ , Sam thinks.

He doesn't know where the thought comes from, but once it's entered his mind, it won't leave. What if there's someone out there waiting for him? Someone he didn't get to say goodbye to because he couldn't remember them after his accident?

Pain explodes in his head so violently and suddenly that he brings his one free hand up to grip a fistful of his own hair.

It takes a lot of effort to take his hand away from his head and grab the cell phone that's on the bed beside him, but he's more thankful than ever that his parents are both on speed dial.

There's a mess of motion around him that leaves him nauseated and ends with more pills shoved down his throat.

"Just a migraine, son. You get them sometimes."

His parents turn the TV and the lights off, trying to make his room as dark as possible before they leave.

"There's a glass of water on the nightstand," his mom says. "Try and drink some of it, Sam. It'll probably help."

The door is shut loud enough to make him wince. All of the plastic consideration and comfort, only to slam the door.

If his brain is going to split itself apart, can't it just hurry up and get it over with already?

* * *

Some days are harder than others. Dean lies on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and once again stuck in the mindset that it's not fair that he gets to live when Sam doesn't.

They try to track demonic activity for the sake of finally confronting Mary's killer, but they're always too late. They're always too fucking late to save anyone. Worse yet, there's no way to tell if it's _the_ demon or _a_ demon. They only know that they've figured out that there are certain omens that signal demonic activity, especially since there's always sulfur left behind by the time they show up.

He hears three soft knocks on the door before it opens, Pastor Jim stepping into the room and taking a seat on the opposite bed. The bed that should be Sam's.

"Hey, Dean," he says. "I think we should talk."

"Nothin' to talk about."

"Dean, you're going to get yourself killed if you keep on this track. Your father, too. You're both being reckless in your search for vengeance."

"So?" Dean asks.

"Vengeance doesn't solve anything. It isn't worth dying over," Pastor Jim says.

"Not like we have anything worth living for."

"Don't say that, Dean," Pastor Jim says. "You're still so young."

Dean sits up. "Yeah? Well, Sam was young, too! And that obviously didn't matter to that damn werewolf!"

"I know, Dean. I know it's not fair, and I know it hurts," Pastor Jim says, keeping his voice soft and kind. "But would Sam want you to throw away your life like this, or would he want you to try being happy even without him?"

"I don't know. Hell, he might not give a shit about me with the way he took off."

"We both know that Sam didn't take well to the hunting life. He was a fine hunter in his own right, but he grew to resent the lifestyle. Do you think that maybe he felt trapped? Maybe he wanted to find his own path in life, not one forced upon him."

"You sound awfully certain about that," Dean says. "Did he talk to you after he ran?"

"No, I would've contacted you and your father if he had. I would've tried to convince him to come and stay with me, at the very least. But he talked to me often when you boys would visit. He told me about the discontent he felt."

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"It seemed like he needed to vent more than anything. I never got the impression he was planning to run from it all."

"Why didn't he talk to _me_?" Dean asks.

It's a question he has regarding many topics involving Sam. Why didn't he say he wasn't happy in the hunting life? Why didn't he say that he wanted something else? Why didn't he say that it was bad enough that he thought running off on his own was the better option?

Then, it occurs to him that maybe Sam _had_ told him those things or tried to talk about them, but Dean wasn't listening. That's so much worse than if Sam hadn't tried talking to them at all.

It adds another layer of failure, and he wonders just how many more times he'll find out he let Sam down.

What a shitty brother he was, and without even realizing it. No wonder Sam left them.

"Dean… Sam practically worshiped you," Pastor Jim says. "I don't thing I've ever seen such pure adoration like I saw when Sam looked up at you, even from the very first time I met you boys. He begged me not to say anything about our talks to you or your father. I think that he was mostly afraid that you'd think less of him for not enjoying hunting to the same extent as you. For wanting something different."

"Never," Dean says. "I never would've thought less of him."

"I knew you wouldn't," Pastor Jim says. "But it wasn't what I knew that mattered. Sam had a thick skull sometimes."

Dean almost laughs at that, but it's a choked sound with the lump in his throat. Pastor Jim is right, Sammy could be a pain in the ass when he wanted to be.

"You told him that, right? That I wouldn't think less of him."

"Of course, Dean."

Dean nods. That's good. Even if Sam didn't believe it, at least he was told.

"I really miss him," Dean says after a pause. "Like, there's just this hole, and I know it's always going to be there. And it hurts."

Pastor Jim sits next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Loss is never easy, but you can't hold this against yourself. You've always done the best you could in your given situation, and you're still just a kid, too."

Dean stays silent, and Pastor Jim gives him a wan smile before he leaves the room.

Pastor Jim wanted to be comforting, but Dean doesn't feel any more at ease after their conversation. All they did is reinforce the fact that he's there, living and breathing, and Sam is dead, rotting away without a proper funeral or a headstone to mark his grave.

That's not right. It's just… not right.

* * *

 _Dean looks at the markings on the map, red trails crisscrossing across the country. "It looks weird, doesn't it?"_

" _What?"_

" _The markings," Dean says. "It looks like they make a symbol or something."_

 _John shakes his head. "I don't see anything."_

" _Look at it!" Dean says, waving his arm at the wall._

 _Dean turns around, but John's gone._

" _Dad? Where the hell did you go, Dad?"_

 _He leaves the room and goes downstairs, trying to flip the lights on, but they refuse to illuminate any part of Pastor Jim's home._

" _Dad? Pastor Jim?" Dean calls. "What the fuck is going on here?"_

 _There are no other sounds in the house. It's like they've vanished and left him completely alone. So, he scours the rest of the house, then goes outside and checks the church when he finds nothing, not surprised that the church is as empty as Pastor Jim's home._

 _He goes back outside again and runs his hands through his hair, looking up at the sky and walking in circles, uncertain of where else to look. Was it always night? He could've sworn that the sun was out when he was talking to his dad a matter of minutes ago._

" _Dean!"_

 _Hearing his name, he turns around. The voice is so familiar, but…_

" _Dean!"_

 _He hears it again, louder this time. More urgent. Looking up, he sees the light on in the room where he and his dad keep their research on demons and their map for tracking demonic activity._

 _Banging his fists against the window and yelling his name… That's Sam. It's Sammy, alive. In extreme hysteria, it seems, but alive._

 _And that's all Dean needs._

 _But that's not normal light in the room with Sam, it's fire. Sam is trapped in a burning room, crying out for Dean's help, and Dean isn't going to let him down again._

 _He runs into the house, going up the stairs two at a time and bursting into the room, nearly knocking the door off its hinges._

 _Sam is there, standing still and facing the opposite wall, but there's no fire. It's just a room. It's a normal room with a lamp on, not even a candle's flame to be seen._

 _Dean stops in the doorway, trying to catch his breath. "Sammy?"_

 _Sam looks over his shoulder and grins at Dean, but it's… twisted. Evil. With a blink, his eyes flicker from warm hazel to a sickly yellow._

" _Hey, Dean," he says. It's Sam's voice, but it's wrong. "Does it hurt to see your little brother again? To see him like this?"_

 _Dean tries to find something to say, but Sam (it's not really Sammy, it can't be) speaks again before he gets the chance._

 _He nods his head at the map pinned to the wall. "Nice picture. You're… kind of close, but I can't take credit for all of these killings, as much as I'd like to. I'm curious, though, where do you think the trail ends? What's waiting for you when you get there, the emptiness from being unable to bring back the people you love?"_

" _I'm dreaming," Dean says. He laughs at himself, a bitter sound. How can he be so stupid to let himself believe that… that Sam's alive? That Sam will just show back up in his life when he least expects it?_

 _Sam shrugs one shoulder, turning to fully face Dean. "You weren't the fastest at figuring it out, but I'll give you a pass this time, sport. We'll see if you can do better next time."_

 _Sam's body is engulfed by flames. Then, he's gone, like he was never there._

Dean's eyes open to a dark room, his heart beating too quickly in his chest. He can't get the image of Sam with yellow eyes out of his head. He has so many questions that he didn't even get to ask (not that it would matter, he reminds himself, because how much were answers from a dream worth?).

It was just a dream… but it was more than that. It felt different. It felt _real_ , and for a moment, he believed that Sam was there. That Sam was okay.

For a moment, his world was alright again.

" _Where do you think the trail ends?"_

He needs to tell his dad about that dream. It's important.

He doesn't understand why, but he knows it is.

It has to be.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	7. Prisoners of the Mind

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** So, if you don't read Desolation, you haven't seen my notes that my updates are slowing down because of real life circumstances (a new job that is taking much of my time and energy away). I will continue to post as frequently as I can, and hopefully, once I find a rhythm, it will be easier to do so.

On a side note, I think we'll be wrapping up the second year with this chapter.

* * *

 _The Second Year_

"It was Sam, but it wasn't Sammy. His eyes were yellow and the way he talked was just… off," Dean says. "I mean, it was his voice, but it sounded different. It sounded… wrong."

It's the middle of the night, but John sits up in his bed, awake and alert.

"Dean, what did he say to you?"

"I don't know. He talked about how it must be painful to see Sam like that and how our map is off. He asked me where I think the trail ends, and something about the emptiness of reaching the end of the trail, just to find that we're still unable to bring back the people we love."

John doesn't say anything for a long time, and Dean feels like a child waiting to be scolded. He knows how ridiculous that is, and he knows that he hasn't done anything wrong, but his father has that intimidating aura about him. The no nonsense attitude of a Marine, and dreams are supposed to be nonsense.

He knows better than that, though. He knows that dreams carry a weight with them, and any number of supernatural beings are able to abuse their dream-walking abilities to torment their victims.

John throws off his blankets and stands up, stopping only to turn on the light in the room across the hall on his way to their map pinned to the wall and the mess of research around it.

It's eerie to stand before it again, and all Dean sees is Sam's distorted image looking at him with yellow eyes and a twisted grin.

"He, uh, he said something along the lines of wishing that he could take credit for all the incidents we marked," Dean says. "You think there are other demons working with him?"

John shrugged, not bothering to look away from the map. "I've never heard of demons working together, but demonic possessions are rare to encounter in the first place. There's a lot we don't know about demons."

Dean wants to ask why the demon would take Sam's form in his dream, because what if there are more reasons behind that decision beyond the fact that it would hurt him to see Sam like that? But he doesn't ask. He can't bring himself to bring up Sam more often than is absolutely necessary. Thinking about Sam is enough to fill his veins with a cold emptiness and leave his heart hurting with each beat.

While John studies their work, Dean slips out of the room and down the stairs. He's in no rush, taking one stair at a time, slowly. He remembers how he would race with Sam down the stairs in the morning when they stayed with hunting friends who owned a real house. He remembers how excited they would be at the promise of a real, home-cooked meal to start their day, because even the worst home-cooked meal tasted better than what they were used to.

He prepares the coffee pot to brew a fresh batch of coffee on auto-pilot, knowing that neither of them will be going back to sleep tonight. It gurgles and spits out a few drops of coffee before creating of sputtering stream of caffeine pouring into the pot.

Dean takes a deep breath, loving the smell of coffee as it fills his lungs. It can't completely chase away the chill of Sam's absence (his death), but it helps a little bit.

He's learned to appreciate the small things, but he'll never stop wishing that he had appreciated Sam more when he had the chance.

He pours two cups of coffee once it's finished brewing, and heads back upstairs. No cream. No sugar. Nothing to offset the bitterness.

In a way, that seems to be a little too accurate of a description for his life.

* * *

 _He's shivering. He's rocking back and forth in the corner of a room made of rotting wood, his knees pulled up to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. He makes small sounds, distressed sounds. His face is buried in his knees, but Dean doesn't need to see his face to recognize him._

 _It's Sam. Sammy._

 _Dean steps closer, but Sam doesn't seem to recognize his presence at all. Still, Dean doesn't want to risk making sudden movements and startling Sam, and it takes every ounce of willpower that he possesses to keep himself from sprinting towards Sam and wrapping him in a death-grip of a hug._

 _That isn't what Sam needs right now. Not while he's scared, and most likely skittish. No, that's more likely to send him into a blind panic than offer him comfort._

 _He takes a few more steps, then pauses once he feels something odd beneath his boot. Something that isn't a dusty, filthy floorboard. He moves his foot and picks it up, a sense of dread trying to keep him from grabbing it. Alarms in the back of his head tell him to leave it be, but he can't._

 _He can't._

 _There's a thick layer of dust on the plastic rectangle he picks up. His mind tells him not to wipe it off, that he doesn't want to see what's behind it. But he does anyway, and he sees Sam's name and picture._

 _His student ID._

 _It clicks where he is. He's at the abandoned cabin where they found not only a werewolf, but evidence of Sam being dead as well._

 _He looks back at Sam in the corner. Was this how it happened? But why would Sam cower in the corner? Dean knows that he's more than capable under pressure. He knows that if anyone could come up with a way to escape given the chance, it would be Sam._

 _He closes the distance between them and crouches next to Sam._

" _Hey," he says. "Sammy, it's me. Dean."_

 _Sam doesn't stop his rocking. He doesn't even look up at Dean, as though he can't hear him._

" _Sammy?"_

 _Dean reaches out to put his hand on Sam's shoulder, but it slips right through him. Dean tries again, and again, his hand passes through Sam like he isn't there at all. Like he's a…_

 _A ghost._

 _Dean's legs lose the strength to hold him up, and he falls to sit on the floor. He sucks in one shaky breath, and releases it as a visible mist in the sudden chill of the cabin. The sort of chill that appears around ghosts when they manifest or try to show any sign of their presence._

 _And Sam's a ghost who's manifested, alone and afraid in the cabin in which he died. In which he was ruthlessly killed by a fucking werewolf. A fucking werewolf that Dean couldn't track and kill first, before it had the chance to get Sam._

 _His heart… his heart was most likely ripped out and eaten. It's something that Dean doesn't like thinking about, but that's what werewolves do to their victims. The bastard feasted on his little brother's heart, and just killing it doesn't feel like enough. It will never feel like enough._

" _Dean…"_

 _Dean perks up at his name and scoots closer to Sam. "I'm right here."_

" _Dean… I'm sorry."_

" _You don't have anything to apologize for," Dean says, uncertain if Sam is hearing him at all. "Nothing. I'm the one who's sorry. I'd give anything if I could go back and convince you to stay with us. I'd do anything to make you happy with us."_

" _Dean… please… Help me. I don't want to be here."_

 _Dean feels a lump forming in his throat, and each breath is a battle to choke air in around it. He can't say words of comfort, because Sam can't hear him. He can't offer a hand on his shoulder or a hug, because Sam can't feel him._

 _He's as useless now as he has always been when it comes to helping Sam, to keeping him safe._

 _Like Sam, he pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, hiding his face. He doesn't tremble or rock like Sam does, but he shares in the misery of the situation. Sam doesn't want to be there, but Dean isn't going to leave him there alone. He can, at the very least, do that._

He returns to awareness slowly, not in the abrupt way that follows being shocked out of a nightmare. And a nightmare, it was.

Opening his eyes to see the empty bed on the other side of the room in the moonlight only reinforces the reality that Sam is not there. For all he knows, Sam is still in that cabin. Alone. Afraid. Waiting for someone to come and get him, but no one can see him.

He turns to face the wall and pulls the blankets higher to chase away the chill in the room.

This time, he won't be sharing the contents of his dream with his father.

* * *

Schoolwork helps.

It doesn't solve all of his problems, but it distracts him from them. He figures out quickly that his right hand is his dominant one. Having to learn to write with his left hand forces him to pour even more concentration into his work, and hours pass by quickly.

Much quicker than when he only had daytime television as a distraction.

But he becomes frustrated more often than he would like. Frustrated at his lack of memories, and why he knows things he can't remember learning. Frustrated at how quickly he tires and how much his injuries hinder him. Frustrated at the merciless headaches he gets more and more frequently. The kind of headaches that leave him in pain for days at a time.

His parents call them migraines, and they give him medicine for them, but nothing seems to chase them away faster or make them any less painful.

They won't take him to the doctor for them, but he plans to ask about it during his next appointment (and he knows that he has several lined up because of his accident. In fact, he's not sure the string of them will ever end).

A few knocks on the door are all the warning he gets before it opens.

"Sam?"

It's his mother, with her voice that turns shrill and angry at a moment's notice. At least, for now, her voice is soft and quiet. When he feels the beginnings of another migraine stirring, it's a blessing to hear her whisper.

He looks up at her from his book, awkwardly pressed against his left leg and kept open by the splayed fingers of his left hand. Getting a bookmark placed is more effort than it ever should be for such a simple task.

"Sam, sweetheart, it's time for supper," she says. "It's just take-out from the Chinese place downtown, the one that all the college kids like."

"Okay," Sam says. "That's fine."

It's a strange habit, that they have to come in and tell him what they're having for each meal, like they're getting permission to give him food that they've already gotten or prepared. What choice does he have? He doesn't want to risk saying that he doesn't want to eat whatever they've listed off, then end up missing a meal because they won't give him anything in substitution. He might not have much of an appetite, but he knows how to keep himself alive. He also knows that he needs some sustenance in his stomach if he ever wants to heal.

"Did you want some of the almond chicken, or the Mongolian beef?"

"The chicken, please."

"Any rice or egg rolls?" she asks.

"Yes, please."

"Alright, I'll bring some to you in a minute," she says with a smile, closing the door.

True to her word, it takes only a minute for her to return with a plate of food and set up a tray that allows him to eat without worrying too much about making a mess on his bed or about how he's going to hold a plate _and_ use a fork with only one working arm.

A flash of memory cuts through his mind. The image of a man with short blond hair, green eyes, and a shit-eating grin.

The prickles of a potential migraine turn into full-force, debilitating stabs through his brain. The image blurs in the pain, fading from his mind, but not before he hears a single sentence in a voice that's so familiar. So painfully familiar.

" _Nothing like some take-out after a rough hunt, right Sammy?"_

He feels more like throwing up than he does trying to get any food into his stomach as it rolls and flips within him. It's hard to think straight, and that damn burning sensation on his back returns.

He grabs his cell phone with fumbling hands and manages to dial his parents. He has no idea what he says to them, or how he was able to form words in the first place, but they come and take the tray of food away. They help him lie down as comfortably as possible with the pain in his back, trying to avoid the difficulty that would come with trying to lie down on even his uninjured side.

He's given pills and some water, then left alone in his dark, quiet room.

He doesn't even remember what caused his migraine to flare up and hit him at full force so suddenly. He had just wanted to get a little bit of food in his stomach, so what happened?

All he knows is that no one should have this much pain in their life.

He turns his head towards the window, grateful for the shortening of days as it grows colder for moments like this. Moments where the sun would make the pain even worse.

He wishes for a life outside of this room. A life where he can go where he pleases without the hindrance or the pain of his injuries.

He wants to taste freedom, not spend his days as a prisoner.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	8. Meaningless Motions

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural, nor am I a medical professional.

 **A/N:** This will likely be the only chapter for the third year. It's more of a snippet as to where they're at, but since major things won't start happening again until the fourth year, there isn't too much to tell for this year.

* * *

 _The Third Year_

Eighteen.

He's eighteen years old. He graduated from high school on time, finding that it was easy to catch up when he had nothing but time to commit to his studies. Things came back to him naturally, things he couldn't remember learning. He _knew_ them, he just needed to be reminded that he knew them.

Movement is not quite as easy. Even with his casts off and replaced with braces (and even those aren't as necessary as they used to be), he's lost a noticeable amount of muscle and range of motion. Range of motion that may never return, specifically in his elbow, if the physical therapist is to be believed. Still, he goes to a suffocating, sterile, and falsely comforting building for physical therapy that might not help him fully recover twice a week.

He's asked his doctors about his migraines and about the pain in his back that flares up at the most unexpected times (although, when he thinks about it, those flares always precede a migraine), but they always give him the same response: nothing he's complaining about is unusual given his medical history. He has no idea what that means, and none of them care to explain it to him. There's a cold, clinical disconnection between him and the medical staff. After the first few times, he feels afraid to ask more questions. They answer him, but the irritated tone and are-you-kidding-me looks they shoot at him leave him more uneasy than he cares to admit.

So, he relearns what he might have once known, and loses hope day-by-day that his memories will ever come back. It's been well over a year, and not even an inkling of memory has returned. Why would any return in the future? He's really past the point of no return, and there's nothing he can do to change that.

He graduated, but he doesn't know what to do with his high school degree. Nothing seems to interest him to the point that he feels like he wants to spend the rest of his life doing it, but he attends college courses at the University of Kansas regardless. His father suggested it, and since he doesn't quite remember how to drive, he hitches a ride with his father.

The benefits of having a professor for a father, he supposes. And the classes give him something to do, something to think about other than the missing pieces of his life.

"How's your side doing?" his dad asks.

Sam shrugs. "Okay, I guess. But it's like there's always a deep ache, or like my muscles don't want to work like they're supposed to."

"Well, the doctors don't think that there's been anything abnormal about your recovery so far," his dad says. "They were very severe injuries, and injuries like that sometimes have long-lasting effects."

It's strange, how much more at ease he feels around his father than when he first woke up. His mother, too, no longer makes him quite as uncomfortable. She's stopped complaining about their financial situation, and her soft voice makes him believe that she might care about him after all. Maybe it's from being in contact with them so frequently, from relying on them so heavily. Maybe it's because they seem kinder and more mild-mannered than when he first woke up, and, honestly, he was on some pretty heavy medication at that time.

What if those uneasy feelings were nothing more than the creation of his drug-addled mind?

"I know," Sam says.

"Did you want me to take you back home? If you're not feeling well, there's no need to force yourself to go to class. Your professors know that you aren't in top shape physically."

"I'll manage."

"Well, if you need a break, you know you can sit in my office or in the library," his dad says. "You're not in danger of failing any of your classes. Far from it, in fact."

"I know," Sam says. "I just… I don't know. I don't even remember what normal _is_ , but I know that this isn't it. Most people don't have this much difficulty with so many little things."

"Most people aren't hit by trucks."

Sam stares out the window, watching suburbia passing by alongside them. Little houses all lined up with neatly manicured lawns and personal touches to make them just a bit different from the other houses. As they get closer to campus, he sees students with backpacks slung over their shoulders walking on the sidewalk, while others stand and wait for a bus to arrive. He might not like to admit it, but that's not an option. He's so easily tired by the smallest amounts of physical exertion, he knows better than to think he could ever be one of the normal kids walking to school. He can't even drive himself to school.

He has to get a ride from his dad.

He watches as they pull into a parking garage and the world turns into a poorly lit concrete casing. This is the hardest part, getting out of the car and to the building where his first class is held. He kept his wheelchair, sometimes looking at it as it sits folded up and tucked away in the corner of his room, but he doesn't want to be forced to use it.

He doesn't want to be seen as weak, despite feeling helpless. He doesn't want to stick out on campus. His professors knowing about his accident and brutal recovery process, along with the lasting effects and on-going migraines, is bad enough. It isn't much, but the way they look at him is different from the way they look at other students.

They watch him, because they feel like they have to. They pity him, because they know he'll never be the person he used to be. The person he doesn't remember being.

"I can drop you off closer to your first class, if you want," his dad says.

Sam shakes his head, heaves his backpack into his lap from the backseat, and pushes open the door. "I'll be okay."

Not that his dad has any reason to believe him. He flashes a quick smile at his dad, hoping to be reassuring, but he's sure it looks more like a grimace than a smile.

They walk in silence to the street corner, then go their separate ways after his dad gives him a pat on the shoulder and says, "Don't push yourself. It's better to be late to class than to set back your recovery."

Sam continues his walk alone, enjoying the fresh air. He thinks that his recovery should've been over a long time ago, no matter how well the doctors think he's doing. It shouldn't be possible to move and live with such deep pain, along with the threat of being incapacitated by pain for days at a moment's notice.

Is it too much to ask for some relief from this misery?

Going through the motions is difficult when the slightest motions hurt.

Maybe he should've listened to his dad and stayed home. What is he even doing here? Looking for a place where he belongs? Well, he feels just as much like an outsider in his classes and on campus as he does in his own home with his own family.

Did he ever feel like he belonged somewhere before losing his memories? It's just another question to which he assumes he'll never have the answer.

He puts one foot in front of the other, letting other students pass by him with their determined strides. They have direction. They have purpose. Fervor. Plans. Reasons.

They have everything Sam feels he lacks.

* * *

John waits for the demon to visit Dean in his dreams again, but it doesn't happen. Dean always answers with a shake of his head when asked, and he sees the war between relief and disappointment in his father's eyes. Yes, the information that they can gather from Yellow Eyes visiting him in his sleep could prove invaluable. However, the possible trauma he could inflict in Dean's mind made it into a frightening prospect. Not to mention the danger Dean is in if Yellow Eyes can find him so easily while he's sleeping.

He had trouble sleeping for months after that visit, seeing it replay in his mind again and again (truth be told, he still has trouble sleeping). Seeing Sam smile at him in a way that looked evil and inhuman. Seeing Sam's eyes flash yellow and turn sinister. Although, he's not sure that his current dreams are any better. He doesn't tell John about them.

He doesn't tell John that he sees Sam every night, alone and shaking in a cabin and unable to understand that he's dead. Unable to see Dean there beside him. Unable to move on from the place of his death and find peace in any afterlife there may be.

Dean doesn't tell John that he watches Sam sob, alone and afraid, almost every night. He doesn't tell John about the way he'll wake up when his room is still filled with darkness, only to stare blankly at the wall and try his best to keep himself together, unable to see the point in doing so anymore.

They get back to their motel room late enough at night that, to some, it could be considered early morning. Another demonic possession victim freed from the grasps of a demon they weren't looking for. They dropped the victim off at the hospital, but she was so out of it, Dean wonders if she'll ever learn to cope and move on with something resembling a normal life.

Some events irrevocably change people, and no one understands that better than a Winchester.

John tosses his bag to the ground, and Dean follows his example. "We'll head back to Jim's tomorrow," he says.

"Okay," Dean says.

Their tones are too even, but they're each trying too hard to keep the other from seeing how much this is getting to them. Another set of omens led them to another possession of another demon who didn't know anything about Yellow Eyes. At least, they didn't know anything worth telling hunters before they were sent back to Hell. Turns out that Yellow Eyes is more frightening than hunters.

Each hunt with no new information on the bastard who killed his mother chips away another piece of Dean's already shattered soul.

"There's always next time," John says.

"I know."

"Did you want to take the first shower?"

Dean shakes his head. "I think I just need to sit for a few minutes first. You go ahead."

"Dean—"

"I'll be fine, Dad. Seriously." Dean flashes a quick smile that hasn't had its signature million watt quality in years. It isn't convincing, but John doesn't argue.

"Maybe order some pizza, then?"

"Sure," Dean says. "Pizza sounds good."

John heads into the bathroom and closes the door, separating himself from Dean. Pizza sounds… about as appetizing as any other food. He hasn't savored the taste of food since the night they found Sam's student ID. Even before that, eating a good meal wasn't as satisfying as it used to be, not in Sam's absence.

What's the point? Why should he get to enjoy what life has to offer? Sam doesn't, not anymore. The only reason he forces himself to eat bite after bite of food that turns to ashes in his mouth is because he knows he needs his strength. He needs to survive long enough to kill Yellow Eyes.

And Yellow Eyes is right. What does he think is waiting for him at the end of this trail? Sam and Mom will still be dead, but maybe Dean will feel more inclined to join them. After all, he won't have anything else to take care of. No loose ends.

He takes the phone book from the nightstand's drawer and finds a pizza place that sounds decent enough to eat without contracting food poisoning. It's such a familiar routine that he does it on autopilot. He grabs his cell phone from his pocket, punches in some numbers that he forgets less than a minute later, and orders a pizza that has plenty of meat along with vegetables. Because that's what Sam would have wanted, vegetables on his pizza.

He doesn't remember how it started, but he does small things in memory of Sam. Little tributes that are too little, too late.

How many times did they cave and order vegetables on pizza when Sam was around because it's what he wanted? Did they ever?

It's something so small, but Dean feels like it's more important than ever. Why couldn't he give his brother these little things when he was alive? Why couldn't he try to make the life Sam hated a little easier, like he tried to do when they were children?

What happened? When did Dean stop trying to make Sam's world better?

 _Why_ did he stop trying to make Sam's world better?

John steps out of the bathroom, and Dean takes his turn, finishing his shower just as the pizza is delivered.

Then, it's another night of eating greasy pizza quietly at a motel table with legs that refuse to stop wobbling at the slightest touch. John doesn't question Dean's choice of toppings, and Dean wonders if these little tributes are being made by John as well.

Does he feel as guilty as Dean does? Does he have a list of things he wishes he could've done differently while Sam was still alive and with them? Does he see Sam every time he falls asleep, unable to help him in any meaningful way?

Dean picks at his second slice of pizza. Honestly, the veggies on it aren't bad, but maybe he's simply grown accustomed to them.

He wonders what John's plan is at the end of this hunt for Yellow Eyes. Will he keep hunting, driven by some sense of duty to protect those unable to protect themselves, or will he feel the way Dean does and decide that his mission is over?

Either way, the future does not look bright or long-lasting for the Winchester family.

Dean is more than ready to close his eyes and let it all just fade away.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review! They help me push on and keep writing for semi-regular updates, no matter how tempting sleep sounds.


	9. The Year of Demons

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** Yes, the fourth year! The year where some interesting things finally start happening, and here's the beginning!

* * *

 _The Fourth Year_

Nineteen and in his second year of college, he still doesn't feel like more than a high school student (as if he had memories of ever being a normal high school student). The classes are around the same level of intensity that he put himself through while doing home schooling, but he reminds himself that they're still introduction classes. He's no closer to figuring out what he wants to major in than he was a year ago, so he keeps taking classes that interest him and hoping that something clicks enough with him that he can see himself spending the rest of his life doing it.

This class is among those that might lead him into a potential career. It's basic American history, the settlers and the colonies and all the way up to the Civil War, but the current topic fascinates him to no end.

The Salem Witch Trials.

While there's a lot to make him believe that the women tried and executed as witches during those times weren't true witches, there's a feeling in the back of his mind telling him that real witches _do_ exist. He can't explain it or fully grasp onto the reasoning behind that belief, but he knows it to be true as surely as he knows his first name is Sam.

The idea of there existing people who cast actual spells that _work_ enters his mind, and it won't leave.

The witches in Salem were executed by hanging, but he wonders if that would work on a real witch. If they have the ability to use magic, why would they ever allow themselves to be caught in the first place, and not to mention allow themselves to be killed with conventional means? Couldn't they cheat death? Surely, they'd be able to cheat death if they have _magic_ at their fingertips.

Once the professor moves on to the next topic, Sam stops listening. He's too absorbed by the idea of witches, and he knows— _he knows—_ they're real. They're the only thing that's made perfect sense to him so far. There's a voice in the back of his head that's telling him he's insane if _witches,_ of all things, make sense to him, but he drowns it out.

He might not know much, but he knows when his gut instinct is right.

* * *

By the time his class ends, he can't remember half of the lecture. He feels his new manic obsession crawling up the walls of his sanity, and he's prepared to add fuel to that fire through the use of the library's computers.

His search brings up dozens of pages of results, and he begins working through them from the top. It's a disorienting amount of information to sift through, and it's difficult to tell which version of witch would be the real one, given the variations from culture to culture and era to era.

He's fallen into his own world while researching, and when a hand lands on his shoulder, he jumps in his seat.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

Sam looks over his shoulder, hoping that his heart will get the hint that it can calm down now. It's one of his classmates standing over him. A girl with her light hair cut into a short bob and bracelets that clink against each other lining her arms. He doesn't know her name, but the way she's staring at him with her dark brown eyes makes him feel like he should. Like her name is another piece of his old life that he's forgotten.

"It's fine," he says. "I was just a little deep in thought."

"A little?" she asks, slipping into the seat beside him. "You've been staring at that screen for a solid half-hour."

She leans over and reads a few lines of the website he has pulled up on his screen. "Witches? Man, you must've really liked today's lesson, huh?"

"I guess," Sam says. "I couldn't stop thinking about the idea of witches. I know it sounds crazy, doesn't it?"

"Why would it be crazy?" she asks. "Witches are real, and I've seen it."

Sam turns his full attention to her, but his mind has gone blank. He isn't alone in his belief, and she claims to have _seen_ real witches.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she says, her lips curling into a smirk. "Which, by the way, are also real."

"How do you…?"

"How do I know?"

Sam nods.

"There's a whole other world that most people could never dream of, and we live alongside it. Sometimes, those worlds collide, and it's something you never, ever forget," she says. Excitement fills her voice, and she sounds breathless as she speaks. "Things that you could never imagine. Powerful, ancient things whose kills are written off as accidents or bizarre occurrences. The handiwork of lunatic serial killers who are never caught."

Sam's entranced by her words, and sees them as truths that he's known for a long time without knowing. He's wrapped in the world she paints, and finds himself as part of it in some way. Some meaningful way that lets him be something more than another college student wandering aimlessly through life. He's connected to it, and he feels that connection as surely as he feels the aches of his forever broken body.

She stands up and holds out her hand to him. "Do you want me to open your eyes to that world of shadows, Sam?"

He doesn't question how she knows his name, and it never crosses his mind. He wants to know about her and this world of hers, not about how she knows about him. So, he grasps her hand in his and stands up.

"There's no going back," she tells him.

"Maybe not," he says. "But at least I'm going forward."

She tightens her grip on his hand and leads him out of the library and through the halls. She doesn't walk too quickly, probably as cognizant of his pronounced limp as everyone else, but she doesn't say anything about it. For that, he's grateful. It's something that he doubts will ever fully fade, but he doesn't want the attention it brings. He hates the way people stare at him. The way they whisper about how they imagine he ended up this way. As if they could ever understand something even _he_ doesn't know.

"What's your name?" Sam asks as they walk.

She glances at him and flashes a quick grin. "Meg."

* * *

He wonders why he drags himself out of bed anymore. Vengeance might be enough to fuel his father, but he doesn't feel it. Sam was his reason for living, and they've already killed the bastard that killed him. His vengeance was complete.

He'd never admit it to John, but he barely remembers his mother. He has vague inky memories of Mary, but nothing concrete, and nothing that he's certain he hasn't fabricated from stories, pictures, and his own desires to have something to hold onto of her.

No, he doesn't have a reason to stay in this world other than to keep John from completely losing it over the deaths of his entire family. So, he lets himself be dragged from demon hunt to demon hunt across the country. While every dead end makes him feel a little more defeated, it only seems to make John try harder. Research more.

Dean doesn't understand it. The man he used to see as an idol and a hero has become nothing more than a madman suffering from two deep losses and trying to convince himself that he can make up for those losses somehow. As if killing the things that murdered his wife and son can outweigh the fact that he wasn't there when they needed him the most.

As if vengeance can make up for the fact that Dean's failed Sam more times than he can count.

Pastor Jim sits across from him at the kitchen table. John has opted to eat in the room they've been using for research and tracking, more obsessed now than ever before.

Dean doesn't see him as often unless they're in the Impala on their way to or from a hunt, or they're in the middle of a hunt. Otherwise, John keeps to his research, and Dean lets him do the bulk of it, helping only when asked.

Dean pushes his food around more than he eats it. He hasn't been hungry in a long time, and he knows that he needs food to keep his strength up. However, he can't bring himself to eat more than a few mouthfuls this time. Today is an exceptionally difficult day for existing.

"You should really eat some more, Dean," Pastor Jim says. "I don't want you becoming skin and bones under my roof."

"Sorry, but I'm really not hungry today."

"You aren't hungry any day."

Dean shrugs. "It's hard."

Pastor Jim sets his fork to the side. "I know it is, Dean, but they wouldn't want you to hurt so much. They'd want you to live. They'd want you to find happiness."

"They _were_ my happiness."

"Dean…"

"No, Pastor Jim. I know you've been trying to help me and convince me that there's a reason for everything and God is watching out for us. That He has some divine plan, and this is all a part of it. That it'll get easier with time, but it isn't. But I can't believe those things. I can't believe in a divine being who would let people who were good and innocent, like Sam and my mom, die in such horrible, painful ways."

Pastor Jim doesn't say anything, and after a minute of silence, Dean gets up and leaves. He heads to the sanctuary his room has become. His room. Not the room he shares with Sam.

Because Sam is…

Dean blinks back the tears forming in his eyes and moves to look out the window instead of at the extra bed in the room. He touches his fingertips to the chilled surface of the window, leaving marks on the glass.

It's been a long time since the thought of Sam has brought tears to his eyes, but the feeling of his loss is growing larger and larger, leaving an icy pit in Dean's soul. It's starting to hurt. It's starting to reach the point where Dean feels physical pain, and he's not sure how much longer he can live with it.

The sun is just dipping below the horizon, and the night (which comes earlier and earlier as winter nears) that's following it is still. It makes time feel frozen, though if Dean had a choice, he wouldn't freeze this moment. He'd freeze one of the moments where he hung out with Sam. One of the moments where Sam truly smiled and enjoyed himself despite being in a life he hated.

He's starting to forget the sound of Sam's voice. Sam's features are blurring in his memories, but he tells himself that Sam would look different now anyway. He'd be nineteen. A man. Dean would take him to strip clubs and try to embarrass him. He'd take him to bars with a fake ID where they could hustle the locals together.

They'd be a team.

A few knocks on the door pull him from his thoughts.

"Dean?" his dad asks, pushing the door open.

"Yeah?"

"I got a call from someone I used to know. She says that there might be some trouble brewing around her. Some demon trouble."

"That's specific," Dean says.

John sits on the bed that's supposed to be Sam's, and Dean sits on the opposite bed.

"Her name is Missouri. She's a psychic, and she was the one who first introduced me to the world of the supernatural after I refused to believe that Mary's death was the result of faulty wiring."

"So, that means she's…"

"Yeah. She's in Lawrence," John says. "We might have to go back."

"I don't want to go back there," Dean says. "I… I can't."

He promised himself he would never go back to Lawrence, not when any chance he had of having a complete family and normal life burned there. He doesn't have many memories of that time, but he remembers the eerie glow of the flames as they painted the hall from within Sam's nursery. He remembers the heat and the fear that told him something was terribly wrong, even if he was too young to understand it.

He remembers the weight of swaddled Sam being shoved into his arms and his tiny legs carrying both of them out of the house. Carrying them into a life that he'd love, and then hate. A life that Sam always hated.

"I know it'll be tough, but it makes sense, doesn't it? If it's _him_ , that is."

"How? How does that make any sense?"

"Well, if it's the yellow eyed demon and he's trying to draw us out, it would be morbidly poetic to take us back to the place where this all started," John says.

"We don't know that there's anything going on for sure," Dean says. "Maybe Missouri is wrong."

"I doubt that, son. But you're right. There's a chance it might be nothing, or that it's some run-of-the-mill demon. We'll do some research, and we'll go from there."

Dean nods, and John leaves the room after giving him one solid clap on the shoulder. A solid clap that feels too final as it sinks in that he might have to return to Lawrence, Kansas, of all places.

He's not ready to go home.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	10. A Girl Named Meg

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** Meg showing up is always a good sign, right? ... Right?

* * *

 _The Fourth Year_

Meg is… different. She's a fire fueled by rebellion and radical ideas that Sam can't deny are true. He knows they are, though he can't explain why.

She takes him to a cafe on the edge of campus in her sleek car that runs so quietly, Sam barely hears it (and his mind can't shake off the vague image of a car not nearly so modern or quiet). She picks a table in a corner and buys a couple drinks, a few pastries, and a sandwich for each of them.

"I picked out what I like," she says. "Hope that's not a problem."

Sam shakes his head. "Not like I remember what I like anyway."

"No?"

"I was in an accident when I was seventeen. I can't remember anything from before it," Sam says.

"You don't exactly come off as the brain damaged type," Meg says, taking a large bite from one of the pastries with a red fruit filling, wiping away the filling that escapes the side of the pastry and trickles down the side of her mouth. "I guess that'd explain your limp, though."

"Yeah," Sam says. "The doctors have done scans and just about every test they could think of, but they say there's no reason for me not to remember. It's been long enough at this point that I've given up on hoping that any memories will come back."

He doesn't quite understand why he's telling Meg, who's practically a stranger, so much about this strange life of his, but he can't stop himself. Something about her draws him in and makes him feel comfortable, like he can trust her. Like she's an old friend he can't remember having.

"That's a shame," Meg says. She sounds sincere enough, but there's something else tinging her tone that Sam can't quite put his finger on.

"It is what it is," Sam says. "My parents have been great about all of it. The lack of memories doesn't seem to bother them at all."

"You don't find that strange."

Sam takes a drink of the creamy, sugary concoction that Meg gave him to buy time to answer. Of course he finds it strange, but maybe that's just the kind of people his parents are. They go with the flow and accept what can't be changed.

"I guess it's strange, but maybe they don't want to freak me out, you know? Like, they don't want me to see how they really feel about it because it's not my fault that I can't remember."

"Maybe," Meg says.

"Anyway," Sam says, "you were going to tell me all about that other world, weren't you? The one filled with creatures and darkness."

"Trying to get straight to the point. I can admire that." Meg takes a deep breath before she continues. "It's taken me a long time to piece together a history for supernatural creatures, but I think I've done a pretty decent job. Are you ready?"

Sam nods. He's ready. Hell, he's been ready since she first offered to open his eyes to the world he doesn't know exists. He's so ready that he can feel every nerve in his body humming with anticipation while his brain churns out impossible stories that might not be as impossible as he believes.

"In the beginning, there were angels," she says. "Archangels, and I'm pretty sure you've heard of them if you're the least bit religious. The only two I'm going to mention are Lucifer and his older brother, Michael."

"Wait, angels are—"

"Yeah. Angels are real," Meg says. "Makes you wonder why they don't help out humans, doesn't it?"

Sam nods. "They're supposed to be benevolent, aren't they?"

He remembers stumbling across a bible verse while he was working on his homework last year for a philosophy class, and he remembers how it sparked enough interest for him to check out a copy from the library and read it from cover to cover. Sure, he dreamed for a few weeks that an angel would come and heal him, returning his memories and complete mobility, if he prayed. But nothing changed, and that hope dimmed a little more each day until it faded away altogether.

"Well, they aren't exactly what people claim they are, I can tell you that much," Meg says. "Anyway, the short version is that Lucifer created the first demon by twisting a human soul to the point that it could never be considered anything other than monstrous and evil. Michael, as per God's wish, cast him into a cage in Hell, and Lucifer is still there today, waiting for the moment of his release."

"How do you know all this?"

"My introduction to this world wasn't a fun one," Meg says. "I came across a demon—or he came across me, depending on how you look at it—and he explained about angels and demons and how he's working to release Lucifer again while he tortured me. Turned out he just needed the blood of a virgin, but he wanted to have fun with it, you know?"

"I'm… sorry," Sam says, because what else can he say in response to that? It sounds insane, but he believes her. What would she gain from spinning lies that crazy?

"I get it. It's not the most pleasant or rational thing to hear or even think about, but I learned to adapt and protect myself from that world. And let's just say I've made damn sure that no demon will find my blood worthwhile again."

"I _am_ sorry, though," Sam says. "That you had to go through it all. That you had to find out about the world in that way instead of having someone explain it to you over lunch at a cafe."

"Moving on," Meg says. "Angels and demons are just the tip of this iceberg, Sam."

Sam settles into his seat, ready to listen and learn from her enrapturing words.

* * *

"I've double-checked and triple-checked," John says. "Lawrence is definitely having a demon problem. Electrical storms. Cattle deaths. The signs are all there."

"Maybe—"

"No, Dean. There isn't a maybe. We have to go back home. I know you don't want to—and believe me, I don't either—but we have to. This might be the end to it all," John says.

"What if it is?" Dean asks. "What if it is the end to it all? What are we supposed to do after? Find hunt after hunt until we don't make it out alive?"

"I don't know, Dean," John says. "Let's handle one thing at a time. Go pack and get a good night's sleep. We'll leave in the morning and meet up with Missouri in the afternoon."

Dean doesn't make any indication that he's going to move, silently standing still, but a gentle pat from John right between his shoulder blades sends him into motion. He raises one foot, then the other, and climbs the steps slowly. The air is thick and weighs down on him, leaving him feeling like he's walking through water or moving in a dream.

If only all of this _was_ a dream.

In his room, he doesn't pack. He never unpacks anymore, not finding any point in removing his clothes from his bag only to refill it a day or two later. It's not like he has that many possessions. He wonders where Sam's possessions are, but he knows they were most likely stolen or tossed aside when someone came across the place he must have left them since he never went back to collect them.

He considers, for only a second, that he should go back to every motel in the area of the werewolf that killed Sam. He should go and ask the front desk if they'd ever seen him, holding up one of the old pictures in which Sam never smiled, not really. But too much time has passed since then, and he doubts anyone would remember a kid from that long ago, especially considering Sam always tried his best to avoid attracting attention.

He wonders why they never thought to search for his stuff earlier, if only to keep his possessions are proof that he was alive once.

Sleep doesn't come easily for him that night, not with the knowledge that he's heading back to the ashes of a life he lived for four years in the morning.

Nothing good can come of this.

Nothing good at all.

* * *

They're still at the cafe when the sun sets, and Sam realizes that he missed all of his afternoon classes while he listened to Meg paint an elaborately vivid—and terrifying—world with her words as the brush and his mind as the canvas.

His phone vibrates in his pocket as he takes another sip of a freshly made drink, feeling like he's consumed half of the menu throughout the day. Meg pays for each order without complaint, but Sam can't help feeling bad about it. He doesn't have money. He doesn't have a job or an allowance. His parents pay for what he needs, and he's not sure how well he'd do in the working world without memories or a body that functions at one-hundred percent.

He pulls his phone from his pocket and shoots an apologetic look at Meg, but she just shrugs and focuses on her plate.

"Hello?"

"Sam?" It's his dad. "Where are you, son? It's time to go home."

"Sorry, Dad," he says. "I made a friend. She took me to lunch, and we sort of lost track of time."

His dad sighs. "I don't mind that you're making friends, Sam, but you have to tell me when you're going off campus and when you're going to be late. You know I worry about you, especially after your accident."

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking," Sam says. "I'll be home by dinner, okay?"

"Do you need me to come pick you up?"

Sam looks across the table at Meg, who mouths that she'll give him a ride home.

"No, I can get a ride."

"If you change your mind, call me. Otherwise, I'll see you at home."

"Okay. Bye, Dad."

The call ends, and Sam knows that his dad is more than a little miffed with him. It was an honest mistake; he didn't mean to lose track of the time and forget to let his dad know that he left campus.

Yet, he can't deny the thrill it brought him to do something he knew he shouldn't. Meg's spark of rebellion, it seems, has spread to him, and it's a fire that cannot be put out. It's a dangerous thing, threatening to make ashes out of all he knows in life, but it feels right to make his own decisions. It feels right to be away from his parents and to regain a fraction of the independence he never remembers having, if he ever had it in the first place.

"Guess it's time to get you home," Meg says.

"Yeah…"

Meg stands up and collects the garbage from the table, tossing it into the nearest trashcan. "No need to sound so excited."

Sam stands up with a hand from Meg and shrugs. "It's just that I've never gotten to do something like this on my own. Well, not that I remember. I don't really want it to end."

"It doesn't have to be a one-time deal," Meg says. "I'll see you in class, I'm sure. We can trade phone numbers and figure something out."

"Will you tell me more about the supernatural next time?"

"Sure," Meg says. "Maybe I'll even find a haunted house in the area for us to visit."

"Really?"

Meg laughs a bit. "Yeah, why not? It'd be fun."

"So, it's a date?"

The question leaves his mouth before he can stop it, and he feels the blood rush to his face as his cheeks heat up.

"I, uh, I didn't mean… I just…"

Meg shoves his shoulder, not putting any real force behind it. "You're overthinking things. It's a date."

He has a date, and it's not a topic that he's given much consideration (and the remnants of his injuries keeping his self-esteem low doesn't help), but he feels lighter. He feels giddy and electric.

It crosses his mind that he needs to tell someone, but it's not his parents he wants to tell. He doesn't have friends to tell, but there's the image of someone he knows would be proud of him. He just can't fully form that image in his mind. He can't reach it, and every time he gets close, it slips away and sends a bolt of pain through his skull.

"You okay, Sam?"

Sam didn't notice that he stopped walking at some point. He shakes the odd thoughts of people he can't remember from his head and closes the distance that's formed between himself and Meg.

"Yeah," he says. "It's nothing."

* * *

Missouri's house is unassuming and sneaks up on him. If Dad hadn't known which house, exactly, it is, Dean is sure they would've been driving around Lawrence all afternoon and well into the night.

There's nothing that makes him think a psychic lives in this house. It's homey and clean and everything that Dean thinks his house would've been had it not burned with his mother inside of it.

Missouri, too, is not what he expected. She's got a lot of authority packed into her for a small woman, and Dean doesn't question her when she orders them into the living room and has them take a seat on the couch, threatening to whack them with a wooden spoon if they dared to put their feet on her coffee table.

She returns to the room with mugs of coffee for them, and Dean is thankful for the warmth to ease the eternal chill of his organs in Sam's absence. Coffee is also one of the only flavors that still register with his taste buds. Bitter.

How fitting.

Missouri takes a seat in the chair across from them. "John… I'm so sorry for your loss."

John nods. "Thank you."

"He was such a sweet baby," Missouri says. "Still innocent about the world around him and the darkness it held, despite being the victim of it at such a young age. I wish I could've seen him again before…"

"Yeah," John says. "I'm sorry I never came back, but Sam did keep that innocence. Even after he learned about the supernatural, he still had something about him. A purity that attracted evil."

"I'm not surprised. I didn't say anything at the time, but I'd have bet my life that he had powers, too," Missouri says.

"What? He wasn't a psychic," Dean says.

"Oh, but he was, Dean. Some psychics' power will remain dormant for decades, and some never unlock those powers at all," Missouri says. "That's not what you boys came here for, though."

"It's not," John says. "So, tell us what you know about the demons."

"Probably not much more than you know," Missouri says. "Something started feeling dark in Lawrence about two or three years ago, but that seemed to be faint and faded rather quickly. There weren't many signs that pointed to demons until a few months ago. That's when things really kicked up to the point that there had to be some nasty creatures moving into the area. Why? Well, I don't know the answer to that one."

"Do you think it could be the demon who killed Mary?"

"I can't know for sure, John," Missouri says. "But the darkness that I felt in the city a few years back is nothing compared to the evil that arrived a few months ago. That, whatever it is, is true evil. A true evil that's very reminiscent of what I felt when you took me to your old home after the fire."

"Why else would it return to Lawrence if it didn't want to draw out me and Dean?"

"I don't know. Sometimes, there isn't any rhyme or reason to evil. But if I had to guess, I would say that it might be preparing to destroy another family. This sort of evil is smart, and it's going to take its time if it means doing the job properly."

"I'm not gonna let that happen," John says. "I'm not letting it destroy any other lives."

"Then, you better hurry in finding it," Missouri says. "It's already had months to prepare. There's no telling how soon it'll be ready to strike, or where it'll strike."

Dean swears that he can see his father's resolve visibly harden in the set of the lines on his face and the way he squares his shoulders. He's been given a mission, and he always functions the best when he has a clear objective to accomplish.

"We'll find it," John says. "We have to."

Missouri gives him a half-smile and says, "I hope you're right."

Dean wishes that he could hold onto the certainty of his father. He wishes he could feel something other than the numbing emptiness that has consumed his life since that damn werewolf hunt. At least, before he found evidence of Sam's death, he could still hold onto hope in some form.

Now, he only hopes this hunt will be the end of it all.

Finally.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	11. Questions

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _The Fourth Year_

He drives through the streets of neighborhoods that aren't familiar, but feel as though they should be with the series of similar houses lining the road with gardens and neatly trimmed shrubbery. This is the place where, if life was fair, he'd have grown up. He would've had two parents, a pesky little brother, friends, some girlfriends, and a steady job. Maybe he would've joined some sports teams or spent his evenings and nights at parties, disappointing his parents who would care enough about what he did to be disappointed in him in the first place.

It's tough to imagine that life. After all he's been through, it seems like such a life should be impossible.

Missouri is nice enough, but she must have read him and his discomfort at hanging around her home without reason. At Pastor Jim's, he has a room and it feels like a second home. Shutting himself into the guestroom of a stranger's house isn't the same. It doesn't feel right.

Instead, she sent him off to scope the city for anything unusual. So far, the only unusual thing he's seen is the lack of students staggering around drunk. Isn't that supposed to be a staple of college life?

It hurts to watch college kids go about the local campus and follow their normal routines. It hurts because Sam would be around that age, if he'd lived. And maybe he's tearing open wounds that have never fully closed, but he can't stop himself from watching and wondering what Sam would look like now. Would he have grown taller? Taller than Dean? Would he be happier now and have grown out his hair into the shaggy mess that Dad always wanted to cut?

They're nothing more than fantasies, but he wishes they could be true more than anything.

He leans forward and is ready to restart the Impala and head back to Missouri's place to let them know that he hasn't found anything exceptionally odd.

Then, the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. He looks around, but doesn't find anybody watching him. He doesn't see any supernatural occurrences to cause it, and his EMF detector stays silent once he flips it on, letting him know that ghosts are also ruled out.

A couple walking on the sidewalk beside the Impala catches his attention. The man is tall, but he's hunched in on himself and walks with a limp, like the movement pains him or he's incredibly stiff. He seems to be in a good mood, laughing softly as the woman next to him grins.

Her grin sends shivers down his spine and he knows— _he knows—_ that something isn't right with her. He can't explain it, but she sets off every alarm bell in his head, and he knows that the guy with her must have no idea that anything could be wrong with her. The guy has the luxury of ignorance when it comes to the supernatural, probably having grown up with regular parents in a boring house that he's lived in since the day he was born.

The guy looks at the Impala as they pass it, and his eyes meet Dean's. Dean swears that he knows the guy, but he can't place where. If he was a victim on a past case, then he would more likely be aware of the danger walking alongside him. If he lives in the town, then Dean would've never crossed paths with him before. They've made it a point to never return, but extenuating circumstances have forced them back.

The guy turns his attention back to the girl, and Dean's left with an odd, unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. He waits until they're farther away before turning the key in the ignition, but he doesn't let them leave his line of sight.

And he follows them, knowing from years of experience not to ignore a gut feeling, and his gut is telling him that the girl is trouble.

He refuses to let anyone else in Lawrence be a victim like he was, stranger or not.

* * *

They barely make it to the end of the block before Dean finds himself parking the Impala again. The guy doubles over, clenching his head, and Dean's first thought is that the girl's done something to him. He doesn't know what, but he knew when he first saw her that she would be trouble.

Now that he sees there's something wrong with the guy she's with, he slips fully into the hunter mindset. There's a threat, and he's likely the only one around who can save that guy. He gets out of the Impala, patting the pocket inside of his jacket to make sure there's still a flask of holy water in it. It has to be a demon. There are the omens, and she's giving off the kind of ancient, dark vibe that he's only experienced near demons. The words of an exorcism dance on the tip of his tongue, but it wouldn't be his best idea to exorcise that black eyed bitch in the middle of a college campus.

He walks towards them, glad they haven't moved much with the guy being in some serious pain. What throws him off is how she's talking to him in a soft tone, trying to soothe him with her voice while she slings one of his arms over her shoulders and supports the majority of his weight like it's nothing. As he gets closer, he can make out her words.

"Hey, you're gonna be okay," she says. "I'll get you back home, and your parents will help you. You said that you have medicine for this, didn't you?"

Dean stops in his tracks. The kid has medicine for this? He doesn't know what _this_ is, but if the kid has medicine, it probably isn't caused by a demon or anything else supernatural.

He's really losing it. He was so ready to believe the worst, that he might have very well attacked a random college student. She still has a vibe about her—there's still something not right—but that's not enough for him to do more than observe her.

He shakes his head and lets out a sigh. What the hell is wrong with him, jumping to conclusions? If something supernatural _had_ been going on, then it would've been fine. But he could've hurt someone who didn't deserve it.

He really needs a break after they're done here. Maybe it's just being back home that's messing with him and getting back to Pastor Jim's will help clear his head.

He starts to turn, but stops when he feels goosebumps cover his arms and a shiver crawls up his spine. He looks at the couple from earlier and finds the girl staring at him while the guy looks barely conscious, being fully support by her and looking like he's working only on muscle memory to stay standing.

She grins at him. "Something the matter, Dean Winchester?"

Dean tenses and slips his hands inside his jacket, gripping the flask of holy water he thought he wouldn't need to use. "How do you know my name?"

"Winchesters are popular where I'm from," she says. "But it's not you I'm interested in."

"Well, I'm pretty interested in you and what you want," Dean says. "Mind filling me in?"

"I'm flattered, but you and your daddy aren't a part of this. It'd be best to head back to whatever hole you crawled out of."

"Not happening."

"Suit yourself, then. I warned you, so if you get in the way, you only have yourself to blame."

"What do you want with him?" Dean asks, jerking his head towards the guy leaning against her.

There's still a familiarity about the guy that Dean can't place, but it sparks a protective instinct that he hasn't felt in years. He might not know the kid, but he doesn't want to see him get hurt. Not if he can help it.

She glances at the guy, then back at Dean. "It doesn't matter. Not to you."

"Humor me."

"No, I don't think I will. Your tough guy act isn't working on me."

Dean takes a step closer, and finds himself unable to move beyond that point.

The girl's eyes turn black and she tilts her head to the side with a grin on her face. Dean feels his feet leave the ground and the hood of one of the parked cars lining the sidewalk give way as he lands on it before rolling onto the ground.

He tries to pull himself up, only to fall back down when pain flares up in the half of his body that took the impact. He doesn't think that anything is broken (he hopes nothing's broken), but he's going to have an assortment of nasty bruises at the very least.

He tries again to get to his feet, moving slowly and using the battered car hood that he hopes won't be found by its owner until he far, far away. This time, he manages to stand, needing the car to steady him so he can stay standing.

He was right in that there was something wrong with the girl, but he has a bad feeling that she has something planned for the guy. The worst part is that he has no idea where they've gone. He knows he wasn't down for that long, but the girl has demonic power to work with and clearly booked it out of the area.

"Damn it," Dean says to himself. He considers kicking the closest car tire, but he figures he's done enough automobile damage for today.

That guy is vulnerable and left with a demon, and he doesn't even know where they might be headed, but he can't imagine that the girl is planning anything good. And she knew his name.

How the hell does she know his name?

He paces the sidewalk until a woman—who has to be a professor with the bag slung over her shoulder filled with manila folders and stacks of papers neatly kept together with paperclips, her grey-spotted hair pulled up into a bun—puts her hand on his upper arm and asks, "Are you okay, young man?"

He shakes his head. "There was some kid, and he looked like he had a massive headache or something and the girl he was with pretty much had to support all of his weight. I just wanted to see if he needed some help, but I lost track of them."

The woman purses her lips together. "Was he a tall man? Dark hair that is a perpetual mess on top of his head, and walking with a slight limp?"

Dean nods a few times. "Yeah. Yeah, that's a pretty good description of him. You know who I'm talking about out of all the students here?"

"He's a… special case," she says. "His dad works here, and we're all aware of his son's medical issues. I'll have to contact Dr. Burroughs and let him know that there's been another episode. Thank you for telling me. Dr. Burroughs must be worried out of his mind."

"Yeah, no problem. I just didn't want something to happen to him."

"He'll be fine," she says. "This isn't the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last. If you'll excuse me, I really need to be going."

Dean nods, but the woman is already on her way to, presumably, Dr. Burroughs' office to inform him about his son's… whatever it was that Dean saw.

There's still a nagging feeling telling him that he needs more information about this situation, about the demon-possessed girl and the weirdly familiar guy with her.

There's no harm in following the professor, he figures. It isn't like he's going to hurt her. Hell, she'll never even know he's there.

* * *

Meg becomes the highlight of every day for Sam, a refreshing rush after years spent confined within his room recovering. She has an edge to her, a dislike of normalcy and routine, and an obsession with the supernatural world that she spends hours describing to Sam. She leaves a taste of danger on his tongue, a touch of rebellion he's never known before. He finds himself thinking about her even when she's not there, and he can't stop dreaming about the world of monsters with himself as a part of it.

It's thrilling and frightening and sends adrenaline pumping through his veins, but he feels like an addict who can't stop indulging in his drug of choice.

Even with his head throbbing in time with his heartbeat, he can't stop thinking about her. She didn't freak out when he got a migraine, she managed to coax his address out of him while he was barely conscious and she got him home safely. She helped him into bed and found his medicine in the bathroom attached to his room.

He doesn't remember if she stopped to talk his mom before leaving, but he does remember hearing voices.

The sun is most likely still up, but it's dark enough in his room to nearly fool him into thinking it's nighttime. He hasn't fallen asleep yet—he knows he hasn't—but he suspects he will soon. He can already feel the allure of unconsciousness and the blissful nothingness that accompanies it.

His phone buzzes on the nightstand, but he doesn't bother looking at it. His limbs are too heavy to reach over and grab it, and the blankets embracing him are so warm, he doesn't want to move and shift them away from their perfect positioning.

No, whoever is messaging him can wait until his head isn't trying to collapse in on itself.

* * *

He feels like some sort of secret agent following the professor through the streets of campus, and then into one of the large, ancient looking buildings and through the hallways filled with pictures of people he'll never know. It smells just like the hundreds of hallways he's been in throughout his school days, and that brings back a lot of memories that he doesn't care to remember. Memories that all included Sam, up to the point when he graduated, and Sam still had a few years left in high school.

Years that he never got the chance to finish.

He watches the woman knock softly on the door of one of the offices lining the hall, then the door opens and lets her in. He considers eavesdropping, but he doesn't think the conversation will be long enough for him to linger, then find a place to hide. The woman came off as the type to keep things short and simple. No mincing words. No small talk.

Dean can appreciate that. Not right now, but in a general sense. Right now, it just makes things more difficult for him.

Instead, he glances at the name on the office door and commits it to memory: Gary Burroughs. He doesn't know who Gary Burroughs is beyond being a professor at the university and the father of the guy who's (likely unwittingly) hanging out with a demon, but he's determined to learn everything about Gary that the internet has to offer.

Satisfied with the amount of information he has, and figuring that it's about as much as he'll be getting, Dean slips out of the building before their chat in the office is complete. No use in hanging around and getting himself caught for creeping in places he doesn't belong.

Besides, a name is enough of a start for now. Hopefully, he'll be able to track down the guy he saw earlier and get information from him about the demon. Even if he doesn't know the supernatural side of things, he should be able to provide an address or a name. They don't need much more than that to take care of the demon problem here.

And then they can get the hell out of Lawrence, once and for all.

* * *

When he wakes up, his head feels better, but he doesn't feel rested. If anything, he feels exhausted, like he spent the last however many hours doing nonstop physical labor instead of sleeping. So, he doesn't move. He remains laying down in his cocoon of blankets to fight off the chilling air of autumn and waits (prays) for sleep to return.

Of course, when he wants to sleep, he can't. But he doesn't plan on doing anything else, so he stares at the dark walls of his room, seeing the shadows move in impossible ways (which has happened fairly often since he started talking to Meg).

A few soft knocks on the door are the only warning he has before it swings open and his dad enters the room.

"Sam?" he asks. "How's your head?"

"Better. I'm just tired," Sam says.

His dad comes closer and sits on the edge of the bed. "Well, your migraines tend to exhaust you. If you take it easy for a few days, you'll be just fine again."

"I know."

"I know you probably don't want to talk about it right now, but I'm worried about you. You're missing classes. You never skip classes, not unless you get a migraine or don't feel well," he says. "You're never home anymore, and even when you are here physically, you certainly aren't here mentally. I think that Meg girl is a bad influence on you."

"She's the first friend I can ever remember having."

"You don't have to change yourself for your friends. Your mom said Meg was quite rude to her earlier when she helped you home. While I appreciate her helping you when you needed it, I'm not sure that she's the type of person I want you hanging around."

"I'm an adult, Dad. I think I can make that decision myself."

"You don't understand anything about this world, Sam. You don't have memories from before you were seventeen! How could you possibly know what a good friend is like if you can't remember ever having friends before?" his dad asks. "I don't want you hanging around her, and that's final."

His dad gets up and leaves, slamming the door and nearly bringing back the intense pain of a migraine. Sam tries to relax again, but his anger is tangible and filling him with an energy that his body doesn't have the strength to use.

How dare his dad think that he can forbid him from having a friendship with Meg. How dare his dad think he knows nothing about this world, when he probably knows more about it than either of his parents can imagine. Meg opened his eyes.

She's helped him. She's taught him. Maybe she was a little rude to his mom, but his mom comes off a little strong. She comes off as someone who's perpetually angry until she cares enough to show her softer side. He's been rude to her plenty of times during his initial recovery. What's the big deal?

And why? There has to be something more. They have to have a reason they aren't telling him. Do they know something about Meg that he doesn't? What could they possibly know about her that he wouldn't know?

There's a lot that isn't making sense, and he know it isn't because of his drained mind from his recent migraine. Someone is hiding something from him. It might be Meg. It might be his parents. Hell, it could be both. He just knows that he doesn't like it.

And he's going to get answers.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm not sure Sam and Dean will like the answers to their questions.

Please leave a review!


	12. The First Step

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** Sorry for the lack of updates on my stories lately. I haven't been feeling well, in combination to working a lot. :(

* * *

 _The Fourth Year_

The atmosphere in his home has shifted, and he knows better than to delude himself into believing it's a temporary situation. Is it his fault that he's become, once again, a prisoner in his own home?

...Is it?

All he did was make a friend. How is that a bad thing? How is that worthy of punishment?

It just doesn't make sense to him. His parents are quiet around him, avoiding him for the most part. Like in the beginning months of his recovery, they only disturb him when it's necessary. For meals, mostly, but it isn't like Sam has much of an appetite.

He pushes his food around his plate with his fork, stabbing it into a roasted carrot, but making no move to bring it to his mouth. The meal smells good—and it looks even better—but instead of making him hungry, his stomach rolls with nausea and tightens at the thought of taking even a single bite.

"Eat your dinner, Sam," his dad says. His tone that used to be kind and warm has grown cold, the way his mother's has always been. He wonders if there was ever emotion in it to begin with, or if that was the product of his imagination or of wishful thinking.

It's starting to feel like he's living with strangers, and all he did was make a friend. Why is he being punished for something so simple and natural? How did things end up like this?

"I'm not hungry."

"You say that every meal," his mom says. "Don't you like my cooking anymore?"

"It's not that I don't like your cooking, I just haven't been hungry," Sam says.

He feels like he's waiting for the tension to crack and blow up into something more, something worse. His life doesn't make sense anymore, but when he looks back on it, he realizes that maybe it never has. When he first woke up in the hospital, there were oddities about his parents. The way they didn't seem concerned about how badly he was hurt. How he didn't see his mother until quite a bit after waking up, even though his dad claimed that she was worried out of her mind for him.

Since then, there have still been oddities, but he's brushed them off thinking that they're nothing more than quirks. Like how his parents don't seem concerned that his memory hasn't returned after years. Or how even the doctors never seemed concerned about his lack of memories, migraines, or the strange flares of pain in his back. He thought that they were trying to keep their concerns to themselves to avoid worrying him, but what if there was another reason?

"Eat a little bit, at least," his mother says. "I don't want you starving yourself to death."

Sam shoves a forkful of food into his mouth and chews, but it feels like nothing more than ashes in his mouth. His parents seem satisfied enough with him eating, and they turn their attention to their own plates. It brings him more relief than it should to have his parents' attention taken away from him, but that's the point his life has reached.

He doesn't want to admit it, but his parents scare him.

All he did was make a friend, how was this a normal response, especially considering that he's legally an adult?

He manages to eat a little more of his supper, thinking that there must be answers to the questions floating around his head.

He just has to find them.

* * *

Gary Burroughs. Dean burns the name into his mind and starts his hunt for information. Who is this man, and who is his son? Who is the demon the guy hangs out with, who apparently knows Dean by name?

He isn't used to the surge of motivation that fills him, but there's something important about the Burroughs family. If he can just find what that something is…

The university's directory seems like the best place to start finding information, but there isn't much that's useful to him there. A phone number for Gary's campus office. His campus email. What's Dean supposed to do with those, call and ask him where he lives and what he knows about his son hanging out with a demon?

He rolls his eyes. That would go over well.

In the middle of the library, which reeks of aged paper and ancient carpets that keep a distinct smell woven into them no matter how many times they're cleaned, Dean puts more effort into researching than he has since Sam first went missing. He ignores the people around him, bustling about and meeting for study groups, assignments, and any number of normal, mundane activities.

It takes a while, but he leaves the library with a few of his findings printed out and kept together with a paperclip, courtesy of the kind elderly librarian at the front desk.

The unfortunate part is that he's leaving the library with more questions than answers, and, glancing at the papers in his hands, he knows that this situation is not adding up. Not at all.

There's an electric current made of equal parts excitement and nervousness coursing through him at the thought of sharing his findings with his dad and hearing his opinions on the matter.

The girl hanging out with Gary's son might be a demon, but there's something not quite right about the Burroughs family either. Something that just isn't adding up.

He's close to an important breakthrough, but he wishes he knew what that would lead to.

Revenge for his mother's death?

An end to the lifestyle he's known for so long?

Well, he's not the type to ponder such questions. He likes certainty. He likes visible progress. He likes _doing_ something, being a part of the action.

And he can't help but believe that there will be plenty of action for him in this demon-infested city.

* * *

Sam shuts himself in his room after dinner, but that's normal for him these days. The bare walls and blinding lack of decorations have become comforting. He finds solace in this emptiness, in the bareness that could be changed to express who he is, but is never actually changed because he doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know anything other than the fact that his first name is Sam and his room is his cage.

He paces the length of his room and hovers over Meg's name in his phone's contact list, but he doesn't know what to say to her.

What happened that made his parents dislike her so much that day she helped him home when a migraine hit?

Is it weird that he feels like a stranger in his own home?

Why is it that, while he doesn't know _who_ he is, he knows that he isn't the person he's been pretending to be? That this doesn't feel like the life he's meant to be living? There's somewhere else he should be. Something else he should be doing.

How is he supposed to explain any of that without sounding insane?

Although, Meg introduced him to an insane world. If anyone understood, it'd be her.

He lies down on his bed. He doesn't even watch TV in his room anymore, preferring to be able to hear what goes on outside of his room. Maybe it's paranoia, but he has a burning desire to be aware of his surroundings. Yeah, he should trust his parents, but he can't bring himself to really trust them.

Nothing makes sense to him. Thinking back, he's not sure it ever has. At least, not since he lost his memories.

It's a little cold, but he opens the window in his room just a bit, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh air, crisp and revitalizing without a trace of summer remaining. It doesn't take away the tightness in his chest that accompanies his thoughts of his identity crisis, not completely, but it lessens it.

His head hurts, and that pain effortlessly escalates into a migraine when he thinks about those questions too much. When he thinks about his identity too much. So, he lies back down on his bed and closes his eyes, trying not to think of anything.

Still, the thought lingers that this is not the place he's meant to be. This is not the life he's meant to live.

* * *

"So…"

"So, why would a random couple up and leave their lives without notifying anyone and come live in Lawrence from miles away?" Dean asks, holding up the missing persons article he printed off. "A normal person wouldn't just go missing to come teach at a university. Besides, it was like no one wanted to publish the story. It took a lot of digging for me to finally find it, and it was published by some little local newspaper."

"We can't draw any conclusions from that," John says, although he does look interested in that article. "People do crazy things, and it doesn't automatically mean those things are all supernatural in origin."

Their mugs of coffee have grown cold, forgotten and pushed to the side of Missouri's kitchen table while they poured over the oddities of the Burroughs family.

Gary and Linda reportedly went missing from their previous home. Neighbors reported that they were concerned since they were usually a nice couple who kept to themselves, but when they stopped seeing them, the neighbors took notice. They never saw cars leave or enter the garage, and no lights were seen on within the house. Without any evidence of foul play or any leads, no real search efforts were conducted. If the Burroughs wanted to pick up their lives and leave abruptly, that was their choice.

Dean looks at the dates on the article. They went missing years ago.

"It doesn't mention anything about them having a son," Dean says. "With how long ago this was printed, he would've still been a minor, even if he's college-aged now."

"He should've been mentioned," John says. "Are you sure they have a son?"

"Yeah, some woman went to talk to Gary after I told her that I saw a guy having some sort of episode. She referred to Gary as his dad and called him Dr. Burroughs, and it's not like she would have any reason to make that up."

"No, she wouldn't have any reason to make it up. Could be that they took in some stray kid after they went missing."

"I don't know," Dean says. "I mean, yeah, it's possible. But it doesn't feel right, you know? The guy was hanging out with a demon who knew me by name and said we aren't a part of this. She wants something with the Burroughs' kid, but she wouldn't say what. Of course, she wouldn't say what."

John sighs and runs a hand down his face. "Nothing like having the dots, but not being able to connect them."

Dean nods. Frustration is an understatement for what he feels, to be on the verge of discovering something, but not quite able to take that final step.

"I _was_ able to find some property records," Dean says. "An address. It might not lead to anything, but I was thinking we could stake out the place. Try to see if we can't figure out the cause of this family's weirdness."

John shrugs. "It's a start, and that makes it the only place to start that we have."

"Ready for some long, boring hours sitting in the car?" Dean asks.

John laughs, a sound that hasn't had any joy in it in years. "Comes with the job, I guess."

Dean nods, looking at the address and trying to map out directions to it in his mind. Sitting in the car for hours on end to watch a house doesn't sound like fun to him, but he has to do this. This case has gotten under his skin, and he's ready to do what needs to be done in order to crack it.

He just hopes that his time in Lawrence doesn't end the same way it did the first time: in flames.

* * *

It's a simple question, but it feels so dense. So complex and heavy, weighing down his mind.

"Why do my parents dislike you so much?"

He sends the question to Meg as a text, waiting with one hand wrapped around the phone for her to answer. He didn't want to bring it up—maybe out of fear for what the answer might be—but his mind is consumed by the possibilities to the point that he needs to hear the truth in order to find some semblance of peace.

He has so many questions, and he doesn't feel like this is the life he should be living. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but asking Meg that one question about his parents seems like a good place to start.

His phone vibrates, and he looks at her response, reading it aloud to himself in a whisper. "Because I know what they really are."

Why does she use 'what' instead of 'who'? What are they?

The answer leaves him with a sour stomach. He got what he wanted (sort of), but it isn't enough and he doesn't quite understand what Meg means.

So, he asks her, "What are they?"

Because he wants to know.

Because he _needs_ to know.

His mouth is dry in his anticipation and his heart beats a little faster in his chest as he thinks about that one question over and over. What are his parents? What has he been living with for years?

When Meg responds again, he almost can't bring himself to look at what she's said, but he has to. He needs to, because he knows that something isn't right about the way his life is right now, even if he can't explain why or how he knows that. He just does. It's an itch in the back of his brain that he's trying to scratch, but can never reach.

She sent him one word: liars.

Liars?

He's… oddly disappointed at her response. He tosses his phone onto his nightstand and lies back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Of course, they're liars. Everyone lies, and he knows that Meg wasn't unnecessarily rude to them when she helped him home. She has a bitingly sarcastic tone that she can't seem to keep out of her words, but that's not exactly rude since she isn't able to help it. That's just the way she is. And her being rude wouldn't be enough for them to forbid him from being friends with her. It's a flimsy reason, and he still isn't any closer to figuring out the real reason.

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He feels like an idiot, and he's not sure what he expected. Meg's response was so normal. How could he have let himself believe that his parents were some kind of monsters? Wouldn't that make him a monster as well, being their son?

He almost laughs at himself, but he can't quite muster up the lightheartedness. There's something off about his entire situation that he can't put his finger on. Something isn't right, but Meg hasn't helped him come any closer to discovery what that something might be.

He feels like he's back at square one.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please leave a review!


	13. Cross the Street

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _The Fourth Year_

The leather seats of the Impala give way to accommodate and support his body from years of him sitting in that very passenger spot. It's home, the only one he's had past the age of four, but it doesn't feel like home without Sam there.

The houses lining the street taunt him with their stability and their occupants who don't know about the darkness of the world. The white picket fences and the normal jobs of normal people who have a place to go home to every night that they can call theirs.

He sees into their homes, lights on while they enjoy the night, and he watches them go about their evening routines. Eating dinner as a family as a table that's steady and clean. Dean's dinner came wrapped in a piece of foil that he crinkles into a ball before he tosses it into the backseat and wipes the grease from his hands onto his worn-out, washed out jeans.

If life was fair—if life gave a damn about him—it'd be him and Sam fighting over the remote in a clean and properly furnished living room. They'd be out in the driveway playing basketball. Dean would tease Sam over being a nerd, not knowing what he would do with his own future while Sam seemed to have it all figured out. He'd tease Sam over every little crush, real and imaginary, but be there when Sam needed a bit of advice or a boast of confidence.

Silence has become a regular piece of his life, so much so that he isn't bothered by the lack of conversation over the hours spent in the Impala with his dad. He doesn't have anything to say to his father, and it isn't a stretch to say that the feeling is mutual.

Sitting, staring, and doing nothing at all is exhausting. Dean yawns and rubs at his eyes with the rough, dried skin of his hands balled into fists. The scent of burning wood seeps into the Impala from an unknown source, rounding out the sleepy neighborhood they've been drawn to for a stakeout.

No matter how long they wait and watch, nothing of note happens. If not for the lights turning on and off within the house to display human silhouettes passing through the rooms, Dean would think that no one is home.

Dean yawns and tilts his head back until it rests against the seat. This is torture, to sit around and wait for something that may or may not happen. For an instant, the thought that this is what it must be like to be a spirit creeps into his mind, but he brushes it away as quickly as possible. Sam might be a spirit, and he doesn't want to think of the hell that must be.

He hopes more than anything that Sam is at peace with their mother, getting to know her so that he'll have stories to tell when Dean finally catches up to them.

"It helps to keep your mind on what you're watching and not let it wander," John says.

"How'd you know?"

"It's written all over your face."

"How do you do it? Just keep going after everything?" Dean asks.

"I do what I have to do," John says. "I keep going because it's what I _can_ do. I can't change the past, but I can change the future. I can keep others from feeling the same pain I've felt, and I have to believe that's worth it."

Dean slumps a bit in his seat, feeling that his father's words were meant to make him sit up straighter and hold his head higher. Yet it doesn't. He isn't as strong as his father. He isn't as stubborn as Sam was. His strength was being strong for Sam. His purpose for being revolved around Sam.

But Sam is gone and he's been thrown out of his orbit into unknown territory.

After a lengthy moment of silence, John says, "It takes time."

"Yeah," Dean says. "I guess."

He returns his attention to one house lining the street, appearing as innocuous as all the others, but that may have occupants of another nature. He'll do what he has to in order to keep the innocent humans safe, but he doesn't have the fire or the passion for the hunt anymore.

He's not sure that time can bring those feelings back.

* * *

His dad sits down on the edge of his bed, and Sam fights the urge to move away. He hasn't made amends with his parents or come any closer to understanding their reaction to Meg. Since that day, they've barely been on speaking terms. What his father—a concept Sam has a tough time associating with the man beyond words—could possibly want to talk about, well, Sam has no idea.

"I know we've been cold to you lately," Gary says.

Sam doesn't roll his eyes, no matter how much he wants to.

"To see Meg her was shocking, and we didn't handle that shock properly." He has a thin veneer of sincerity coating his words, but it wouldn't take much to chip it away and find the lack of emotion beneath it. It's the silver tongue of a practiced liar, and Sam doesn't know _how_ he knows that each word is a piece of a careful lie, but he does.

Sam nods. There's a lot he wants to say, but he doesn't dare utter a word. Regardless of what he thinks about his parents, he's at their mercy.

"She's a bad kid, Sam," Gary says. "I've seen her records. I've had her in class. I know that nothing good will come from spending time with her. I don't want your future to be dragged down because of her. You deserve better than that. It starts with skipping classes to go to lunch, but where does it end?"

"I'm not sure I'll be returning to classes soon either way," Sam says. "That last migraine took a lot out of me, and I don't think I'm ready to go back yet."

Gary smiles and pats Sam's knee, hidden beneath a mess of blankets, a few times. "You can take all the time you need. We'll talk to your professors and see what can be arranged so that you won't fall too far behind."

Sam musters up a small smile of his own in return, but it feels twisted and wrong on his face. His stomach rolls and his skin crawls at the touch of Gary, the man supposed to be his father.

Shouldn't he feel safe in the presence of his parents? Thinking back, had he ever felt safe in their presence, or had he fooled himself into thinking that he had?

Meg had—intentionally or not—done something to clear his mind. She wiped away the submissive fog that kept him from questioning too much and allowed him to see that which he was incapable of seeing for all the years since the moment he woke up in the hospital without a single memory of who he was or how he got there. She threw back the veil and told him to look at all that to which he'd been blind.

So, he did, and what he saw left him scares. What he still sees continues to leave him scared. This room isn't his safe place like he once believed.

"That sounds good," Sam says. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me," Gary says. Sam notices the genuine joy in his eyes at the belief that his reuse has been successful in fooling Sam once again. "I'd do anything to help you succeed."

Sam watches Gary stand and leave, keeping a painful plastic smile on his face until the moment the door closes and he lets it fade away. He releases a breath he never realized he was holding and looks out his bedroom window.

What else in this world has he been missing?

* * *

It's a spark of curiosity that drives him forward. The thought of his blurry hospital memories and bits of conversations that trail off and fade in his mind. Fragments of words written on walls and signs present themselves, and he grasps onto what he can. The name of the hospital? Not quite.

Part of the name? Well, he doesn't have anything else to go off of, and there's no harm in pretending that he works for Sam Burroughs' new doctor and needs those records transferred to ensure proper treatment.

It wouldn't hurt anybody. Those are his own records, after all.

He punches in the numbers for the hospital he was at after his accident into his phone with a disconnected numbness. If he thinks about what he's doing too in depth, he'll chicken out. He can feel it.

He almost misses the voice on the other line, feminine and clinical, perfect for the medical setting.

"Hello," Sam says. "This is… Jeremy from Lawrence Memorial Hospital. I have a patient who was treated at your facility following a car wreck a few years back, and he claims that the injuries he sustained continue to bother him. I was hoping that I could get his medical records transferred here so we can get him in for a follow-up."

"Sure. the patient's name and birthday?"

"Samuel Burroughs. Born on May 2, 1983."

There's a pause that leaves Sam's stomach in knots. What if she doesn't believe him? What if she's taking so long to reply because she sees through his lie?

"I'm sorry, but there are no records for a patient with that name and birthday on file here."

"What?" Sam asks.

"I suggest contacting Samuel and double-checking his information."

"Yeah. Yeah, I will. Thanks," Sam says.

He hangs up before she can reply, though he's certain that she wouldn't say anything useful to him.

He flops back onto his bed and stares at the ceiling. What the hell is going on? He doesn't have medical records from after he was hit by a car?

It doesn't make sense, but unlike the other small things that don't add up, this one is too big to give the benefit of the doubt. He can't attribute this to an outside force and try to reason through it to convince himself that, under the proper conditions, it could be true.

He picks up his phone and holds it high overhead, sending a message to Meg.

"My parents are lying to me," he says. "I don't know who they are, but they're hiding something, and I know it has to be important."

It doesn't take long for his screen to light up and buzz to alert him to a new message.

Meg tells him that she has a plan, if he doesn't mind staying in his room and pretending everything is okay for a little bit longer.

"I guess not," Sam says back to her. "I've been doing it for so long already, what does it matter if I keep pretending that I believe the lies they tell me."

"Good," she replies. "And don't worry. Your jailbreak is coming soon."

He doesn't know what she means or what she's planning on doing, but he can't bring himself to care.

When faced with the option of lying parents and Meg, he's choosing Meg.

He doesn't have any reason to believe she's lied to him, and he has even less reason to believe that his parents have told the truth about her.

He'll go with the lesser of two evils.

* * *

It's after sunset on another mindlessly boring day of their stakeout that Dean feels a shift in his air, enough of a shift to force the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck to stand at attention. He glances at his dad, and the sight of his concentrated face is enough to tell Dean that—whatever it is he feels—his dad is feeling it, too.

He watches a car drive down the street, the intensity of its headlights nearly blinding, until it parks on the street in front of the Burroughs' household. The lights fade away and leave only an impression in Dean's eyes, a bright impression that leaves him blinking to clear it away.

The car doors open and shut, sharp interruptions in the quiet neighborhood they've been watching. The first figure he sees leave the car is the girl whose eyes turned black and who knew him by name. He swears that she looks back at him with a smirk before walking towards the house with an older man in tow.

The streetlights above them flicker with an electric hum.

The man looks over his shoulder at them with a grin.

And his eyes flash yellow.

They walk into the house, and Dean is getting out of the Impala.

"Son of a bitch," John says. "Grab the holy water."

Dean doesn't need the instructions. His body moves of its own accord, knowing what to do in a situation where his mind is frozen at the realization that the bastard who walked into the Burroughs' home is his mother's killer. He never thought this moment would come, but now that it has, he understands how unprepared he is to deal with true demons.

They're halfway across the street when the house lights up in a blaze of flames.


	14. As the World Burns

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **A/N:** I'm so sorry for the lack of updates and the lack of responses to reviews. It's taking all of my free time to slowly chug out a chapter of any story. :(

* * *

 _The Last Day Apart_

It happens quickly, yet it feels like everything moves in slow motion as it happens, like it's the only way for Sam's brain to process what's going on. Each second is turned into a minute. Each minute is turned into an hour.

His mother's high-pitched, eardrum shattering shriek is what draws him from his room and into the hallway. It isn't a sound of frustration or anger or annoyance this time. It's the sound of pure unfettered terror being forcibly torn from her vocal cords. After the real sound has ceased, it continues to echo in his ears.

He sees Meg standing in the doorway, smirking with her arms crossed casually over her chest. Her eyes have a gleam in them that Sam's never seen before, a sadistic gleam that betrays her amusement in watching his parents reel at her sudden appearance.

But the man beside her is someone he's never seen before. An older man, old enough to be Meg's father, in a cleanly pressed suit and serpentine smile on his slightly wrinkled face.

Sam takes a few steps farther into the hallway and closer to the entry room of the house, his barefoot footsteps muffled by the plush carpet padding the ground. He moves as though submerged in water, a foreign, imaginary weight slowing his progress.

"What did you hope to accomplish?" the man asks. "Keep him crippled and make him your prisoner? If not Sam, then it will be another. Don't you understand that?"

He takes a step closer, and Sam's parents take steps back. They become tense, and Sam can see them trying—unsuccessfully—to move.

"You two have turned your backs on our Lord," he says. "And you know that my wrath—as fearsome as it may be—pales in comparison to Lucifer's."

 _Lucifer?_

The name echoes in Sam's mind. The fallen angel. The King of Hell, once the most beloved of God's angels.

Meg told him about ghosts and witches, but angels and The Devil? Those are just stories, aren't they?

But the man blinks and his eyes turn yellow, and Sam thinks that maybe the dark world to which Meg opened his eyes goes deeper than he first imagined. He raises his hand, and Sam's parents toss their heads back, shaking and convulsing as pitch black smoke pours out of their mouths before pooling on the ground.

Sam takes a few steps back, but stumbles and falls to the ground. He doesn't think that anyone noticed him before, but his fall produced enough sound for the man to turn towards him and smirk.

"Sammy, glad you could make it," he says. "I know that you don't remember me—or much of anything else—but you could say that I've know you since before you were born. We're almost family. Don't worry about these two impostors, I'm taking care of them for you."

Sam tries to shake his head, but he feels like he's stuck in the same paralyzed state as his parents, unable to make as much as a sound.

"Don't worry, Sammy. I'm not going to hurt you intentionally. You've already been hurt enough by these two," he says. "I do hope that you'll be back in top shape in a few years or so."

The smoke stops pouring from the mouths of his… parents? They begin to collapse like puppets with severed strings, but Meg's eyes flash abyssal black and she raises one hand. The bodies of his parents defy gravity and are pressed against the ceiling, their limbs splayed in unnatural positions. Sam can't see their faces, but he can imagine the silent pain that would be displayed on them.

When Sam thinks that this situation can't get much worse, the bodies of his parents, pinned to the ceiling, burst into violent flames.

That's when adrenaline fuels him enough to get away from the heat of the fire, coughing at the sudden fog of smoke filling the house, and shuts himself in his room. His mind is going blank trying to find the logic beyond the scene he witnessed. The one thought that he knows is true is that he has to get out of the house. It isn't safe any longer, and he's not sure that it has ever been safe in the first place. All those times he felt like a prisoner. All those times he felt uneasy around the couple claiming to be his parents.

Maybe his mind was picking up on something he couldn't consciously catch, because it seemed like he had those feelings for good reason.

He should have run long ago. Why hadn't he?

He tries to pry open the window, but it refuses to budge. He checks that it's unlocked, and then checks again because no matter what he does, the window refuses to open without any reason to stay closed. He slams his hands against the glass pane, and then balls them into fists and starts a new assault upon it.

The smell of everything he knows burning away fills his room and his lungs. He's heard—not remembering where or from whom—that the smell of burning flesh is something that can never be forgotten. He believes it, though there's an odd familiarity to the scent that he can't quite place.

His chest constricts and it's getting harder to breathe, though he's uncertain if that's due to his raw panic or the smoke that's rapidly filling the house.

Outside the window, he sees the golden glow of the fire on the grass. Freedom and safety are so close, but so far away.

He stops his assault on the window, knowing that the front door is unlikely to be reached at this point. He wonders why he's trying to escape at all. His parents were just killed, and what was that black smoke? The only friend he has watched them die, and her eyes turned black. The man with yellow eyes acted like he knew him, and Sam can't remember ever meeting the man before.

Like his house, everything he thought he knew has gone up in flames.

He hears a voice in the back of his memory speaking about fires and bodies pinned to the ceiling. He sees the image of an old photograph of a woman with flowing blonde hair and a gentle smile, someone he should know, but can't remember.

Each thought sends a stab of pain through his head that quickly escalates into a throbbing migraine. He clutches at his hair with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut like it'll help, but it never does.

He feels any chance he had to get out slipping away as his migraine grows to be debilitating, and it takes all of his effort to keep from falling unconscious.

* * *

Dean follows his father into the burning house, thinking about how backwards the situation is and how any sane person would run _away_ from danger. Not Dean Winchester. No, he runs into the middle of the fray to save those who can't save themselves.

Though, this time, he's personally invested. Something about the guy didn't seem right—or it _did_ seem right, but Dean can't place why. Regardless of that, two demons just walked into the house—including the demon who killed his mother—and now it's burning.

The smoke makes it difficult to see the moment they open the front door as it pours out of the house in dark grey billows. The heat is intense, though not yet unbearable. He has no idea if that kid is still alive or why his family was targeted, but if there's a chance to save someone, Dean is going to take it.

It takes only a second for him to notice the two figures obscured in the mess of fire and smoke, and another second to meet glowing yellow eyes that match the flames aside from the fact that they don't flicker.

"I knew you'd show up if I came here, Johnny," he says. He jerks his head towards the bodies that have become more ashes than human pinned to the ceiling. "These two were trying to rob both of us of something important."

John has his gun trained on the yellow eyed demon, but they all know that the bullets within it are nothing more than an inconvenience to him. "And what would that be?" he asks.

The man throws his head back with a full-bellied laugh. "You can't tell me that you don't already know the answer, or have at least suspected it. You find a card—but no body—and assume your boy is dead? Or did you simply wish that he was dead because it'd be easier on you?"

"Losing a son would never make anything easier on me," John growls out, his tone low and dangerous despite the fact that he has no real way to harm the demon.

"Yet, you never gave more than the bare minimum in order to satisfy your older son when it came to handling Sam's so-called death. Because you didn't want to face the darkness you know is in him, but can't understand why. Why him? What's different? Am I getting close, John?"

Dean sees the lines forming on John's face, creating hard edges as he tightens his grip on his gun to the point that his knuckles turn white.

Dean coughs a few times, the smoke starting to irritate and dry out his throat. Out of all the places to have an ominous talk, only a demon would choose a building that's in the process of burning down.

The sound draws the demon's attention towards him, and he grins. "Why don't you go on down to the bedroom down the hall, Dean? I'm sure you've been waiting a long time to see your brother again, haven't you? Just be sure that you two take better care of him this time. I don't like having to intervene."

The words take a moment to pierce through the fog of denial clouding his mind, but once they do, he's at the door to the room before his father or anyone else can stop him. His heart has either started beating too quickly, or stopped beating all together, and he's not sure which.

He slams his shoulder into the door, and it gives way to his adrenaline fueled hit.

The guy he saw walking with the demon is curled up on the floor, hands clutching his head in a way reminiscent of when he nearly passed out on the sidewalk. He crouches beside the guy and rolls him onto his back.

He gets a closer look at the guy's face, and it feels like he's taken a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He looks like Sam, enough that Dean's doubts in the demon's words fade away, if any were present to begin with. Years have past, and he's older, but the face is without a doubt _Sam's._ He doesn't have a way to explain it, but he knows.

He's alive.

In a burning house.

In pain.

Instinct takes over, old instincts that Dean never thought would be used again.

He knows only one thing: he has to get Sam out, because he can never go through losing him again.

He tries the window first, but it won't open. There's no reason for it to stay closed, but Dean doesn't have time to mess with it. He pulls Sam to his feet and drags him out of the room and past their father, carrying him more than being a crutch.

For the second time in his life, he takes Sam out of a burning building.


	15. So Close, Yet So Far

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _Reunited_

Dean collapses on the grass in front of the house, far enough from the house to not worry about the fire. He can't move his legs that have been paralyzed by the shock of seeing Sam again. Maybe Sam is in pain in his arms, but Sam is alive in his arms, and he never thought that he'd have the chance to hold onto his brother again. The little brother that he failed so horribly, he thought he pushed him to his death.

His tears fall down his face, making trails hotter than the fire felt as it licked his skin. He coughs up acrid tasting smoke, but he doesn't care. He's fine. All that matters now is Sam. Sam alive and breathing (coughing) in his arms. Everything else in the world fades away; it isn't important enough for his attention.

He wishes he could freeze this moment as he carefully cradles Sam's body, something that he never imagined he'd have the chance to do again. Sam's in pain, sure, but he's alive. Dean can work with pain. Death, well, there isn't much he can do in that regard.

Dean is startled out of his little isolated world by John's heavy hand falling to rest on his shoulder.

"Dean—"

"No, I know," Dean says. "Sam needs medical help that we can't give him. I'm not ready to let go of him, not after spending years thinking..."

"He's here, though," John says. "We'll take him to the hospital and figure out what's going on. Why he never contacted us. Then, we'll work from there."

Dean nods a few times. The words of the yellow-eyed demon echo in the back of his mind, but he tries to keep them away from the forefront. He doesn't want to think about what he meant about Sam being dead being easier on their father. He can't imagine how such nonsense could possibly be true, but he also never imagined that Sam would run away.

And he never figured out the answer to that. But maybe now he could. He can talk to Sam, and he'll make damn sure that whatever it was that drove him away never happens again.

Sam is barely conscious, so Dean does most of the work in maneuvering him into a better position. Judging by the crowd starting to gather and stumble towards them in the glow of the fire, someone has already called and firefighters and paramedics will be on their way to take control of this mess. Dean figures that the best he can do until they arrive is make Sam as comfortable as possible.

He feels like a four-year-old again, running his hands through the hair of an unaware Sam, promising him that it'll be okay because he's there. He won't let anything get him.

He doesn't hear the sirens until lights are flashing in front of him and people in uniform swarm the area.

Sam is tended to first, carefully pried from Dean's grasp and given the medical attention he needs. As long as he stays in sight, Dean figures that it isn't too bad. He can't vanish again while he's in Dean's sight. And really, Sam needs help that Dean can't give him. He knows that.

He doesn't realize that he needs any sort of attention either until there's an oxygen mask strapped over his face to cover his nose and mouth. The paramedics say something about smoke inhalation and minor burns, but he stopped understanding their words in the midst of his euphoria at finding Sam alive.

They can start over.

He'll be a better brother. Anything he did before that built on Sam's notion that running away was the best option, he'll never do again. He'll do anything to keep Sam around this time.

It's a relief to be allowed in the ambulance with Sam, and he's glad that John didn't argue over who rode along. None of them are in bad enough condition for the paramedics to fret for them, but they are concerned about Sam's apparent pain in his head.

"Did you hit your head?" one of them asks.

Sam groans before he answers, like talking requires more strength than he can muster. But Sam's always been stronger than people give him credit for, and he forces out a single word in response.

"Migraine."

The paramedics seem less concerned, at least, than they were, but Dean guesses that he'd rather deal with a migraine instead of a head injury as well. He reaches out and puts his hand on Sam's forearm. He doesn't know if Sam is angry at him for something he did years ago—and if he's being honest, he has a difficult time recalling what happened in the days leading up to Sam running away. But he wants to offer any sort of comfort that he can. Sam is in pain, and he just wants him to know that he isn't alone. He wants him to know that he never has to be alone again, because Dean is right at his side, and he won't let anything change that.

The ride to the hospital is—in Dean's opinion—the most uneventful hospital trip he's ever taken. The paramedics keep an eye on them, but they've already done as much as they can to help. They aren't worried. Hell, the siren isn't even blaring as they make their way through the streets.

He could get used to this, not having to hold in his organs as they break every speed limit in a rush to the nearest hospital.

* * *

The hospital staff knows Sam, and that's as comforting as it is disconcerting. They seem fond of him, and Dean knows they'll do anything they can to help. But why has he needed so much medical attention? What's happened to him?

Dean is cleared rather quickly. He wasn't in the house as long as Sam, and he doesn't have any other medical conditions to cause concern. The sterile air suffocates him after they remove the oxygen mask, and he immediately misses the clean scent of fresh air pumped into him from it.

He's lead to a waiting room after explaining that he wants to see Sam Burroughs, his friend and classmate. He saved him from a fire, after all, and he wants to be sure that he's okay. It's a lie that hurts to tell, but they're so set on Sam not being a Winchester. Dean isn't willing to do anything to bar himself from visitation rights.

So, he sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a room of people who are awake in the most minimal sense of the word. He bounces one leg on the ball of his foot and pretends that the cup of coffee in his hand doesn't taste like hot mud. He thinks of how crazy the world must be if it was a phone call from a woman who can read his mind drawing him back to a place to which he never wanted to return that brought him back to the most important part of his life. A part that he thought was gone forever.

He doesn't know where John went. He followed them to the hospital in the Impala, but left shortly after Dean was given a clean bill of health. He only knows when John returns and takes a seat beside him in the waiting room. Together they sit.

And sit.

And sit.

If he didn't have the remnants of adrenaline fueling him alongside his racing thoughts, he might fall asleep in the time it takes for a nurse to speak with them. But when she seeks them out, he's as awake as he was when he raced into the fire.

"You said you're a friend of Samuel Burroughs?" she asks Dean.

Dean nods, but John gives a more vocal answer in the form of a grunt.

"I can't give you too many details, but I can tell you that he's going to be fine. He didn't sustain any major injuries in the fire. He should be ready for some visitors tomorrow."

"Why not tonight?" Dean asks.

"Visiting hours are over," she says.

Dean opens his mouth to protest, but John speaks first.

"Thank you," he says. "We'll be on our way out, then."

The nurse nods with a polite smile and continues to her next task.

"Dad, what the hell?" Dean asks when she's out of earshot.

"What, Dean?" he asks. "You want to make a scene and get banned from seeing Sam at all? Besides, we can use tonight to figure out how we're going to get him out when it's clear that the staff isn't going to accept the story that we're his family. They seem to know him too well."

"That still doesn't explain why he was living with some random couple and never tried to contact us."

John stands up and Dean follows him as he heads to the Impala.

"Typical case," John says. "We end up with more questions than answers."

"Yeah," Dean says. "Typical. But Sam is alive. That's a win. That's a huge win."

"Yeah. Sam's alive."

* * *

Dean doesn't sleep through the night, waiting for the moment that he can talk to Sam again. They tried to find answers to their questions, but gave up quickly and went their separate ways to wait out the night. Everything has dragged on. Even the ride to the hospital feels too long. Never-ending, almost.

Then, when he arrives at the hospital, his path from the entrance to Sam's door is a blur. He's waited so long for this moment without believing that it would come.

The door is ajar, enough that he sees a nurse inside talking with Sam. Enough that he sees Sam sitting elevated in his bed with a shy smile on his face, looking so much like the kid he remembers that it makes his heart hurt.

He knocks a few times, and they both turn towards him as he slips inside.

"Hey, Sammy," he says.

Sam looks at him, and he sees the faint recognition in his eyes. Then, he's clutching his head with both hands and groaning.

And Dean is pushed out of the doorway, the door closed in front of him.

* * *

 **A/N:** Because nothing can be easy for a Winchester, right?


	16. A Matter of Memory

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

The nurses tell him that he can leave soon, but he doesn't know where he'll go. Everything he can remember has been burned to the ground, and he's not as upset about that as he should be. Meg is a liar, and that stings, but he's glad that her truth is out. The things she told him about the world are true, she just failed to mention that she was a part of that darkness.

Like everyone else he knows, it seems like. And it feels like he has more questions now than ever. All those feelings and hesitations since waking up in the hospital make more sense, but he wants the truth now. He's ready for answers. Real answers. Just… something _real_.

The nurses tell him that he had a visitor earlier who had to leave once Sam was struck with another migraine, but he doesn't remember anything of the sort happening. The migraine happened, he knows that much. He still feels the dull ache in his skull and the exhaustion. He still feels like he would be okay with never leaving a bed again, because the thought alone is enough to tire him. He's starting to hate the migraines, because now he doesn't know who could have possibly come to visit him. Who is there? Was it Meg wanting to play more tricks on him? Play more games with his mind?

"Where are you going to go?" one of the younger nurses asks. He doesn't have anything against her, but his circumstances leave him feeling a little less than friendly. Not even her honey sweet voice and sincere eyes can crack through the negativity filling him. She can't force him to have a place to go, but she's curious. She's always asking questions that Sam can't answer.

He's not a minor anymore, so he supposes that once he's gone, he's gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Another forgotten face among the patients who flow in and out in a constant stream.

Sam shrugs one shoulder. "I don't know."

"Don't you have any other family?"

"Not that I know of," Sam says, leaving out the fact that he's not sure the two who died in the fire were his parents in the first place.

She glances at him with the same sad look in her brown eyes that she always seems to have around him. She bites her lower lip between her teeth, but doesn't say another word. Without a reason to stay, she exits the room, leaving Sam alone once again.

He embraces the silence.

* * *

Later in the day, when the light coming into his room is deep shades of orange and the sky is torn between violet and navy blue, a woman comes into his room as a visitor. Not a nurse, that much is clear from the lack of uniform. But Sam is certain—as certain as he can be—that he doesn't know her.

She takes one look at him with her warm dark eyes and frowns.

"Oh, child," she says. "You've been through so much."

She walks up next to his bed and puts her hands on either side of his face.

"Who are you?" Sam asks.

"I'm a friend," she says. "My name's Missouri, but you don't have to worry about any of that. Just know that I'm here to help you."

Sam's jaw clenches, setting hard lines in his face. She wants to help him? Like Meg wanted to help him? Or his 'parents?'

"I know it's hard to trust anyone with what you've been through, child," she says, "but I've known your real dad since you were a baby."

"What?" Sam asks. Through all his suspicions about Gary and Linda, he never considered that there would be a real family out there waiting for him.

Why wouldn't they have found him by now? It's been years since he started living with false parents.

"They had no idea where you've been. In fact, they thought you were dead," Missouri says.

Thoughts race through Sam's head faster than he can keep track of them. Why would his family think he was dead? He knows that he was in an accident, but wouldn't they have been contacted instead of Gary and Linda? The more he thinks about the possibilities, the more his head hurts.

"Don't worry yourself about any of that right now, child," Missouri says, interrupting the chaos of his mind. "You rest up. When you're ready, I'll take you back to my house and get you set back with your real family. I know they've been missing you. More than you can imagine."

Missouri excuses herself from the room as a migraine arrives full force and leaves Sam wanting to claw his brain out of his head. He doesn't recall if he agreed to her suggestion or not, but he has other concerns at the moment. Concerns that are only worsened if he tries to think about what Missouri could gain if she's lying to him, and why she would want to help at all.

But the offer is tempting. After all, he has nowhere else to go.

* * *

Dean paces the length of one of Missouri's guest rooms, turning sharply on his heel at each end and repeating his trek across the room. He's pissed. No, he's beyond pissed.

His little brother is alive and in a hospital room, but Dean isn't allowed to go see him. As if spending years apart and believing that he was killed wasn't bad enough.

 _He's pushed out of the room before he can really enter it, Sam's sounds of pain echoing in his head. Had he been injured more than they thought by the fire and demons?_

 _He hovers outside the door like a ghost guarding his haunt. He knows that he won't be let back into the room anytime soon, but he holds onto the glimmer of hope that he might. It's been so long and the years without Sam have been rough. He's not ready to go back to Missouri's and deal with the irrational fear that Sam will slip away again when he's not there._

 _John's hand falls on his shoulder and guides him away from the door, down the hall, and out of the hospital._

" _I left them some information about the situation," he says. "Ignoring the supernatural parts of it, of course. But they said they'll call and let us know when Sam's feeling more up to having visitors."_

" _We're not visitors. We're family," Dean says._

" _Yeah, well, that wasn't enough to keep Sam around the first time. We don't know what's been happening or why he was with those demons. We're working with too many unknowns."_

 _Dean grunts a sound of acknowledgment. He doesn't have to like the truth, and he very much doesn't in this case. Sam needs help._

 _But he thought that Sam needed him before, and he was wrong that time._

When he hears the front door open, he's down the stairs and staring at Missouri before she closes the door. He spots his dad on the couch, leaning forward with intense interest in anything Missouri is about to say.

She heaves a long, heavy sigh and shakes her head. "The good news is that he'll be coming here when he's released from the hospital. I told him I knew his real family and could get him in contact with him."

"And the bad news?" John asks.

"It's the strangest thing," Missouri says. "When his mind tries to drift to a point before what it thinks of as 'The Accident,' I see a flash of white and I feel his pain erupt until it blocks out any thoughts he was trying to find."

"Can you explain that in English?" Dean asks.

"Something is blocking Sam's memory beyond a certain point. He doesn't have a clue who either of you are or who he really is," Missouri says. "And it hurts him to try thinking back on what's he's missing."

It takes a minute for Dean's mind to put together what Missouri's words mean. But if she's right, then it doesn't mean that Sam never contacted them because he didn't want to see them.

Sam never contacted them because he couldn't remember them.

"How do we fix it?" Dean asks.

"I'm not sure, but I know that it has to be supernatural in nature. The tough part is figuring out the exact cause while he's in the hospital," Missouri says. "If we slipped in the slightest, we would end up in the loony bin. No, we'll have to wait until he's here to get our answers."

It isn't what Dean wants to hear, but it's better than nothing.

Sam is alive, and they're one step closer to having him back to his old self.

Dean just hopes that Sam's old self isn't still holding against them whatever feeling drove him away in the first place.


	17. The Scars Remain

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

On the day that he's released from the hospital, he figures he shouldn't be surprised to find Missouri waiting for him at the exit. The nurses sent him off with sad smiles, curious eyes wondering where he'd go and if he'd be alright. But he's survived everything else so far, he can survive this, too.

"I never agreed to stay with you," Sam says.

"You got another place to go?" Missouri asks.

Sam stays silent. He doesn't have anywhere else to go, and it scares him how little he knows about being on his own. All he knows is being under the constant guidance of his 'parents.'

"That's what I thought," Missouri says. She puts a hand on his arm and guides him through the parking lot to her car. "We'll get a meal into you, and then we'll talk about all those creatures in the dark that have been tormenting you over the years."

Sam slips into the passenger seat in the back row of her car, not comfortable enough to sit beside her. But he won't deny the motherly air she has about her. Perhaps, if he knew more about himself beyond the lies he'd been fed for so long, he might have trusted her from the beginning. Known that he could trust her.

For the time being, he isn't sure who to trust anymore. He isn't sure who can be trusted.

Missouri drives in silence, and Sam stares out the window for the duration. There's an emptiness eating away at him inside, and he knows that he needs to find a place for himself. He cannot allow demons to control him again.

A spark ignites in his belly, an intense burning hatred that tells him to kill the creatures that hide in the shadows, but the feeling is gone before he can grasp and hold onto it.

"Do you want me to put on the radio?" Missouri asks.

 _A man sits behind the steering wheel, tapping his hands in time with the music and singing off-key. He glances over at Sam, sitting in the passenger seat, with a smile on his face that's reflected by the shimmer in his eyes._

 _Sam hears his own laugh echoing in the undertones of the music._

A strike of white-hot pain flashes through his skull like a bolt of lightning. The scene fades from his mind as quickly as it appeared, and he doesn't remember what it was he saw within moments.

Missouri glances back at him from over her shoulder with a frown on her face, like she knows what's going on in his head somehow. Like she knows what he's forgotten.

"Don't worry, child. We'll get you sorted out soon," she says.

"I don't think that's possible," Sam says.

He's not sure he wants to be sorted out. After all the revelations he's witnessed recently, how many more can he take? What else can the world throw at him?

"A lot of things that seem impossible are possible," Missouri says. "You'd be surprised, but you'll be better after getting sorted out. Trust me on that."

Sam stays silent.

"You don't have to believe me right now," Missouri says. "It's gonna be a lot to take in. But you aren't the first person I'm introducing—properly—to that world in the shadows. And I doubt you'll be the last."

He doesn't have anything to say. There's a gnawing emptiness in him, and he's not sure he wants the truths that will fix it. He closes his eyes, wishing that the darkness would swallow him. Like it could make it so he never woke up into this nightmare.

But he's not foolish enough to believe those wishes will ever come true.

* * *

Missouri leads him to a small room on the second floor of her average looking home. Sam isn't sure what he expected, but normalcy wasn't it. It's a quaint place, cozy in a way that soothes some of his anxieties.

He sets his medications out on the nightstand, familiar in a way he doesn't like. He's told that he needs them, that they help, but what if that's all a lie, too? How's he supposed to know who or what to believe?

"I have a few other guests staying with me right now," she says. "They won't bother you at all, so don't worry. But if you hear something around the house, it ain't demons or ghosts or any other creature. They're completely human."

Sam nods at her words, but they don't convince him fully about these guests. He wishes that she'd told him ahead of time. Given him the opportunity to find somewhere else to stay.

He turns to sit on the bed, his body exhausted and unused to moving around like after the accident he can't remember. His stiff movements bump one of his medications from the nightstand, letting it fall to the floor with a rattle as the pills within try to escape their plastic cage. He leans over to pick it up, thankful for once that they come with secure caps so he doesn't have to scrounge for stray pills and hope that he's found them all.

Missouri's sharp gasp draws his attention, and he sees her shocked face looking at him.

"Your back," she says.

And he understands. He's felt the knotted flesh of scars on his back, and he can only imagine how hideous the sight must be. He's never managed to contort himself in a way that allows him to see it with his own eyes.

"It's from an accident I was in a long time ago," Sam says. He tugs the bottom of his shirt back down over the skin it rose to expose and tries to ignore the feeling of being stared at. "It still hurts now and then, but some injuries are like that. They never really heal."

"Oh, child," she says. "You don't have to apologize about something like that. I was surprised is all. You get some rest, and I'll work on an idea that I think is going to help you out."

Sam nods. He doesn't have much to say about it, and the memories from his time in the hospital when he woke up without knowing anything are resurfacing. He doesn't want to think about the past years, but he doesn't have any memories from other years to mull over.

Missouri is nice, but he isn't sure what to make of her claims of helping him. Of her claims of knowing ways to sort him out or help him out.

When she leaves, he lies on the bed, trying not to overthink his situation. As if that's possible.

* * *

Dean's _not_ happy. Being relegated to a cot in Missouri's overcrowded basement with its musty smell is bad enough, but being there to keep him away from Sam?

Sure, he might have been the reason that Sam ran off in the first place. And yeah, maybe Sam doesn't remember him right now because of whatever Missouri said about his memories being blocked.

Fine. It makes perfect sense that he's being kept away from Sam to prevent ignited another migraine over memories that aren't allowed to be resurfaced just yet. That doesn't make it any easier for Dean to deal with. After years of believing Sam's dead, it's hard to force himself to not keep Sam in sight at all times. Dean can't lose him again.

He _can't_.

He thinks back to his strange dreams of Sam during the years they thought he was dead. The distorted image of Sam mocking him, and he wonders if it was more than a dream. If something was taunting him, as they thought may have been the case at the time.

The sound of Missouri's footsteps descending the stairs draws his mind back to the present.

Dean and John both watch her in anticipation, waiting to hear good news for once in their lives.

"Well," she says, "I think I know the source of his memory troubles."

It's what they want to hear, but she doesn't look entirely happy about this discovery.

"And?" John asks, prompting her to continue.

"I caught a glimpse of some scars on his back when he bent to pick something off of the ground. He claims they're from an accident, but accidents don't leave purposeful lines like he has. Accidents leave chaotic scars, and these scars were carefully and intentionally placed."

Dean puts the question of how these scars were placed on Sam in the back of his mind. He knows that he won't be getting answers about that any time soon, and he'd rather not drive himself mad before they fix Sam up. Still, the disturbing thought of Sam being scarred for the purpose of not remembering his past lingers.

"So, what do we do?" John asks. He's kept his composure better than Dean has, and Dean's glad for that.

"If the scars are for spellwork, then we have to disrupt them. Break them. The problem with them being scars is that—"

"We have to make more scars to cancel the spell out," John finishes for her.

Missouri nods, and Dean fights the urge to throw up.

Hurt Sam to save him?

This is never how it was supposed to turn out.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey, I got to a plot point! While I do thank all of you for your support and kindly ask you to leave a review, I'd also like to point out that I have a one-shot posted called Caged Time. It might be a bit of a hint for an upcoming story that I've been working at for a long, long time as I'm over half way done with both this story and Desolation.


	18. Cross it Out

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

He hears the gentle rapping of knuckles on his door before it creeps open, old hinges creaking. It's no surprise to him that it's Missouri who steps into his room. It's always Missouri.

But this time, she's holding a small mirror by its silver handle. It's an old item, not from this century, and maybe not from the previous one either. But it's well-kept. Sam catches a glimpse of himself in its polished surface as Missouri walks closer and takes a seat on the edge of his bed.

The face she wears prepares him for bad news, but he can't imagine exactly how twisted her story is. The only thing he knows is that the news is about him. It has to be, and he's getting awfully sick of his world being tilted and distorted.

"We need to talk," she says.

"Yeah," Sam says, "I figured."

She smiles a bit. There's a hint of humor, but it's so faint that Sam wonders if he might be imagining it.

"There's a lot in this world that people might call crazy, but you and I know better than that."

Sam stays silent, waiting for her to continue.

"Creatures, yes, but the supernatural extends beyond the living and animate. Objects. Spells. Runes. Any number of things can hold power. Power that can be used against people."

Missouri wraps her free hand around Sam's upper arm and guides him to a standing position before leading him into the bathroom. She spins him so he has his back to the large mirror.

"There's something that you need to see," she says. "That memory loss of yours is no accident. Someone wanted to keep you from remembering your past. They wanted to control you by controlling your identity."

"What?"

Sam tries to rummage through the scraps of his memories, searching for any inkling beyond the day he woke up in the hospital surrounded by strangers claiming to be his family. But he finds nothing. No hint as to who he used to be or how he ended up in the hospital other than the stories he was told.

"The scars on your back aren't an accident," Missouri continues. "Take your shirt off and have a look for yourself. No accident can make scars in shapes like yours."

Sam finds difficulty in peeling off his shirt, his hands fumbling and unwilling to obey the commands of his scrambling mind. He doesn't want to believe that the past years of his life have been this carefully orchestrated and planned out (the very thought leaves his stomach churning sour bile and threatening to revolt), but he knows that Missouri doesn't have a reason to lie to him. She doesn't seem like the type to find pleasure in delivering dire news.

Missouri hands him the small mirror, wrapping his numb hand around it like she knows he isn't sure that he'd be able to do it himself, and he positions it until he can see his back in the larger mirror, almost wishing that he'd never had to see it at all. As though he could have lived in ignorance for the rest of his days.

His back is made up of knotted flesh sculpted into three purposeful, distinct shapes, shapes that would never naturally occur from a car accident.

He drops the mirror, ignoring the crash it makes as it shatters into fragments, and twists as much as his arms allow, trying to claw at the mess of his back.

"Get them off," he yells. "Get them off!"

He bends down and grabs one of the mirror's broken shards, not processing the pain and the heat of the blood that wells up and flows down his hand from his tight grip. Missouri is saying something, but her words don't register with his brain.

He slashes at his back, trying to reach the scars. Trying to peel them off, as if that were possible. As if he had the range of motion to do so.

He continues yelling, but he's not sure if it's for himself or to Missouri. Someone tries to pull his arms away, to take the mirror shard from him, but he doesn't see anything anymore. He's blinded and numb and too far away for this to be happening to him.

It's just a nightmare. It has to be.

It's someone else's body struggling to remove hideous reminders of years stolen away from him.

It's somebody else.

Not him.

It can't be.

* * *

Dean hears the yelling—Sam's voice—and rushes up the stairs, taking them two at a time. His heart races and crawls its way into his throat. A million nonsensical possibilities rush through his mind, but the one scenario he doesn't consider is the one he finds when he comes to a stop at the bathroom.

Sam has a madness in his eyes that Dean's never witnessed before, and it leaves him certain that Sam is unaware of anything other than his own hysteria. How could he be?

Instinct takes over, and Dean wrestles Sam to the ground, his flailing limbs making the task more difficult than he anticipated. Too much blood gets on him in the process for his tastes, but he needs to stop Sam from mutilating himself further. His shoulders are already a mess, numerous cuts criss-crossing them and oozing out steady streams of blood. His right hand is going to need lines of stitches.

He thought that his nightmare would be over if they ever found Sam (which he had no hope of during the years they believed he was dead), but it feels like he's only fallen to a new level of horror.

"What did you do, Missouri?" Dean demands. "What did you do to him?"

"I showed him the scars on his back, and he wanted them off. His mind started racing to the point that I couldn't read anything coherent from it. I promise I didn't expect something like this to happen, Dean."

John is on his knees next to Dean, and Dean doesn't remember when he got there. He was too focused on Sam.

"I guess now is as good a time as ever to cut across the scars," John says. "Hold him down, Dean. I don't want to cut too deep 'cause he's thrashing."

Dean shifts his hold on Sam, who hasn't stopped yelling or trying to get away. The blood on his hands makes it difficult to get a good grip, but he manages to keep Sam still enough.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean says. "We're gonna get them off of you, Sammy. Okay? We're gonna get them off."

Sam doesn't hear him. Or if he does, he ignores him.

"Missouri, you mind getting the suture kit from my gear?" John asks. "We're going to be needing it."

"I can do that," she says.

Dean looks at John, who doesn't look anymore thrilled about what they have to do than Dean. His jaw is set and the lines of his face stand out more prominently.

John takes a deep breath and grabs the bloodied piece of mirror Sam had been using. He lines it up and draws it across the top symbol one way, then the other, creating an 'x' over it. More blood pours up and onto Sam's skin, and Dean can't help but think that there are too many red rivers in the room.

John repeats the cuts over the other two symbols on Sam's back. The one blessing is that Sam quiets down as he loses blood. It isn't enough to kill him, but they all need him to just _calm down_.

"You're gonna feel a lot better when this is over," Dean says. "It's gonna hurt like hell for a bit, but it'll be worth it. You'll see."

John moves quickly, but the process drags on.

"You're gonna be okay, Sammy. We're fixing you up."

All Dean can do is hope that he's telling Sam the truth.

* * *

Dean stitches up the mess of Sam's back and right hand. Getting him onto his bed was easy when he wasn't in the midst of hysteria, his body lighter than it should be. It's just another concern added to a list that's far longer than Dean likes. They can fix some of it, like the memories, but he's not sure they can fix all of it.

He still doesn't know why Sam left them all those years ago. He doesn't understand what happened to drive Sam so far away. Why he didn't talk to them or let them try to help. Try to fix his problem.

Sam is unaware of the world around him, and Dean finds himself to be a bit envious of that. Whether he passed out from the pain, the flood of memories, or the exhaustion, Dean doesn't know. But he's glad. He thinks that they all need a moment.

When John walks in, Dean has no idea how long he's been sitting at Sam's bedside, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest as he's curled up on his side, the same way he slept as a kid. The pang of nostalgia is almost physically painful.

"I prayed for this," Dean says. "I never pray for anything, but I prayed for this. For him to be out there somewhere."

"I know," John says. "We couldn't have prepared for this when we made our way back here."

Sam is right in front of him, breathing and alive, but it doesn't feel real. He doesn't want the stab of guilt to be justified. The knowledge that he gave up looking for Sam when he needed him the most. "I spent so long thinking that he was dead. But here he is. Right fucking here. What if he wakes up and his memories have him running from us again?"

Finding a dead Sam would have been hard enough (had been hard enough), but finding an alive Sam who didn't want Dean in his life?

"We'll figure something out. A happy medium for everyone," John says.

"He's not like us," Dean says. "You and me… we like hunting. Hell, I thrive on it. The adrenaline and the thrill. But Sammy's different. He doesn't want to hurt anyone or anything."

"You know I would give him the normal life he craves if I could, right? Knowing what's in the dark… I can't let the thing that killed your mother stay out there because I think he's gonna want Sam at some point. I have to kill him before he gets the chance."

"Yeah, I know. But Sam doesn't. He never knew Mom. Not really."

"I'll talk to him when he wakes up," John says. "As long as cutting the scars worked and he has his memory back."

"I don't even want to think about that. I just…"

Dean trails off. He just wants to go back all those years and fix everything before it fell apart. He wants to find out what drove Sam away and do everything in his power to solve Sam's problem. He wants to erase the years they spent separated.

He wants the impossible, but he knows he can't have it.

All he can have is one more chance to do things right.

* * *

 **A/N:** We're almost to the end. Please leave a review!

Check out Caged Time if you want a hint for what my next project after this and Desolation are completed will be.


	19. The Fog of Time

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _Dean didn't answer his phone. The words echo through Sam's mind again and again. Dean didn't answer his phone, and Sam has no way of knowing where he is or how to contact him. He's well and truly disconnected from his family. His old life._

 _If their dad hadn't fallen out of Bobby's good graces, he'd at least have a place to start._

 _His feet drag as he pulls himself along the sidewalk, wondering why he's bothering if this is going to be his life. An endless struggle to make ends meet. Never being able to live the normal life he craved because he has no credentials. No way to start the new life he yearned for. He's a minor and has nothing._

 _What the hell had he been thinking when he left? Why didn't he plan better? Why didn't he think this through better? Been more thorough?_

 _His self-loathing is acid burning through his veins. Maybe this is why they spent so much time babysitting him. Why they didn't trust him on his own._

 _He couldn't handle being on his own. He needed to be sheltered and watched._

 _His eyes burn from his effort to hold back the tears threatening to fall. Why is he bothering to still tutor at the library? Why is he bothering to do anything at all?_

 _It doesn't matter in the end. He's running on a treadmill and going nowhere fast._

 _He's not paying much attention to where he's headed. He's putting one foot in front of another, and that's as much as he can process._

 _Then, he's not on the sidewalk anymore. He feels the shove, then the world is in slow motion. Car horns screech in his ears. He twists as much as he can, and he finds a pair of black eyes above a smirk staring directly at him, the man's arm outstretched from pushing him._

 _And he recognizes that man. Not from this moment, but from another memory lingering at the edges of his mind._

 _Only he knows him as Gary._

* * *

 _When he wakes up, all he knows is pain. He thinks that pain might be all he's ever known. After a few blinks, his vision clears enough for him to make out watery outlines of people around him._

 _Their words reach his ears in a sluggish slur that takes his brain a second to comprehend._

" _This is nonsense. Some human boy who isn't aware of his surroundings is supposed to be the chosen one?"_

" _You know he's one of Azazel's favorites. With the way Azazel fawns over him, it has to be true. So, we have to hide him."_

" _Why now? Why this century?"_

" _I don't know. All I know is that if Lucifer comes back, none of us are safe. If he hates mortals, why wouldn't he hate the twisted version of their souls?"_

 _He tries to lift his head, but pain flares up through his body._

" _He's awake," someone says._

" _Better get this over with quickly, then. Hold him down. Don't worry that he's awake. He won't remember any of this when it's over."_

 _Sam feels hands on his shoulders, and burning pain takes over his back._

 _The only solace comes when he finally slips into unconsciousness._

* * *

Dean is sick of waiting, but he doesn't dare leave Sam's bedside. He knows that the second he leaves would be the second that Sam decides to wake up. That's always been the problem. Sam slips away when he's not looking, and he doesn't want to take a chance this time.

It feels surreal. Sam was there, then he was gone without notice. Sam was dead, then he was alive.

Is alive.

He'll wake up any moment now. He has to.

He thinks over the years they were apart. He thinks over all the days they spent searching. The days they spent mourning someone who was still living. He thinks over the drinks that their dad had because it's how he coped with losing a wife and a son.

There's so much he wants to say, but he doesn't have a clue as to where he'll start.

He hears a quiet gasp from Sam, the same way he used to wake up from nightmares as a child after he drilled the idea that screaming made him weak so far into his head, it made it into his subconscious (no matter how many times Dean told him he was being ridiculous).

Sam tries to push himself up, but falls back to his stomach on the bed.

"Easy, Sam," Dean says. "Your back is gonna hurt like hell for a bit, so don't try and make it worse."

Sam turns his head to face Dean, blinking away the sleep with confused, wide eyes.

"Dean?"

Dean's heart migrates into his throat, making it difficult to speak. Sam remembers him. He knows his name. He knows _him_. "Yeah, Sammy. It's me."

"Where am I? I was in California and…"

He trails off, but Dean doesn't expect him to pick up that thought. It's going to be a lot to process, but they have time. They have time now.

"You're in Kansas now," Dean says. He refrains from adding 'Dorothy' to the end of that statement. "What do you remember?"

"Bits and pieces. I don't know," Sam says. "It's all really foggy, like the memories are there, but I can't put them back together in the way they're supposed to go."

"Yeah, well, don't try to force it. You've been under some pretty nasty spellwork for awhile."

Sam groans a bit, shifting into what must be a more comfortable position for him, but looks equally uncomfortable to Dean. He asks, "How are you here? I…"

"You ran," Dean finishes for him. "I came back, and you were gone. No note. Nothing. But I found you. Dad and I found you."

Sam purses his lips together and lets his eyes wander away from Dean. It's a familiar expression, and one that means Sam isn't ready to offer up information about his running away all those years ago.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Dean bites back the urge to sigh. Instead, he says, "Me too."

"What for?" Sam asks.

Dean shakes his head. What for? _What for?_ Where does he fucking start?

"A lot," Dean says. "Everything."

"Don't have to be."

"I do, and I am." He pauses. "We can talk more when you're better. When things make a little more sense."

Sam's eyes are drooping and he's fighting sleep like he's a child again. He may be older, but so much of him is familiar that it traps Dean's heart in a vice. Seeing Sam like this makes it feel like no time has passed at all, while simultaneously making the reminder of that lost time almost too prominent to handle.

"Go to sleep," Dean says. "I'll still be here when you wake up."

Sam makes a sound, and Dean assumes it's all the acknowledgment his words are going to receive.

Of course, he'll still be there. Dean's presence was never in question.

It's Sam who's always disappearing.

* * *

"How's he doing?"

John slips into the room, and Dean's lost track of time long ago. He doesn't know how long Sam's been asleep after their miniature conversation where too much was left unsaid. He doesn't know where John went or how long he was away.

Dean shrugs only one shoulder and runs a hand down his face, taking a moment to press it against his tired eyes. "Better, I guess. He woke up for a bit and didn't seem to be in any more pain than expected. He said his memories were foggy yet. Jumbled."

John nods, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. "That's good. It's _something_."

"I know. I just wish it was more."

"We'll get there. Give it time."

"I've never heard you sound this patient," Dean says.

"I've never had a son come back from the dead before."

There's a pause before Dean says, "How could we have missed it?"

"There were no signs of demonic activity here. Without Missouri, we wouldn't have been here before that house fire at all. There was no way to know."

"What if he still wants to run?"

"I'm not sure that's a good option for him," John says. "For his own sake. If those two demons went through so much trouble to hide him, I'm guessing that they aren't the only ones."

"You think other demons are going to go after him?" Dean asks. The thought itself makes his stomach twist.

"They hid him for years. They didn't kill him, either. There has to be a reason behind all of it. I'm not sure what that reason is—not yet, at least—but I intend to find it."

"I can't lose him again, Dad. I just can't."

"I know, son, but we aren't going to be losing him again any time soon. Not on my watch."

John is just a man, but Dean has to have faith in him.

If he doesn't, then what does he have to hold onto?

* * *

 **A/N:** One more chapter.


	20. Long Way to Where We Are

"Everything I did, I thought I was protecting you and Dean," John says. "It might not have felt like it, but I wanted you boys to be safe more than anything."

Sam nods because what is he supposed to say to that?

"I saw your mother die, and how unnatural it was. I learned about the evil in the world, and it made me afraid."

Sam doesn't expect words like that to leave John's mouth. His father? Afraid? That's not the adjective he'd choose. No, far from it.

John's the hunter that _other_ hunters strived to become. A legend talked about with a round of beers at a bar in exaggerated motions. An idol. Dean's idol. To hear him admit to fear… Sam never thought he'd see the day. John is supposed to be their rock. Their support that they can always trust to pull them through tough hunts, no matter how tough or careless he comes off as being towards his children. Sam understands his hard persona, but it never stopped him from wishing for a father who showed more warmth. More pride.

"I had a suspicion that something evil was after you. I don't know why or what it wants, but if anything, these past few years of yours reinforce that suspicion."

"Yeah. They said something about Lucifer and Azazel. It's kind of a blurred conversation in my mind, but it didn't sound good," Sam says.

"No, that doesn't sound good at all," John agrees. "That's why I need to know that you aren't going to try running this time. We can't go through all this again. Dean barely survived it this time. _I_ won't survive it another time."

"I never meant to hurt anyone," Sam says. "I didn't know it would be like this."

"Well, we're not judged by our intentions, just our actions."

"I'm not going to run again," Sam says. "Even before I was made into the prisoner of demons, I was regretting it."

John sighs, and Sam finds that he can't read his expression clearly. It's a mix of so many emotions that it's difficult to pick them apart from their entangled mess.

"I'm sorry I couldn't give you the life you wanted," John says.

"All I want right now is to figure out whatever demonic plot I'm unwillingly part of so I don't have to worry about being shoved in front of a god damn truck again."

"That's something I can help with," John says. He leans forward and gives Sam his full attention, his face shifting into seriousness in a more businesslike fashion. "Tell me everything you can remember."

* * *

When Dean walks in, Sam sees for the first time how much he's changed over the years. The trademark confidence that demanded attention is difficult to find, reduced to a fraction of what it once was. Every step appears to be more of a chore than anything else. When he takes a seat in the chair beside Sam's bed, the movement isn't graceful. He falls into the chair as though he wasn't expecting it to be there and it happened to stop his descent to the floor.

After a long pause, Dean asks, "How's your back feel?"

In truth, the onslaught of forgotten memories blocked out the pain of his shredded back at first. Now, however, the physical pains are making themselves known in a way Sam can't block out anymore.

"Not that great," Sam says.

"Yeah, it's not a pretty set of wounds that you got there."

There's another pause, but Sam's the one to break it this time. "I don't think I'll be able to hunt with you guys. Not like I used to."

"What do you mean?" Dean asks.

"After that demon shoved me into traffic, I don't think my injuries fully healed properly. They weren't really concerned with my well-being as much as they were about making sure I don't remember anything."

"I know," Dean says. "Dad got your medical records. We both know that you… won't be the same."

Sam opens his mouth, but Dean cuts him off. "And we aren't the same either, Sammy. We should've realized it earlier, but losing you was, well, it was the worst experience of my fucking life. I don't care if you can't hunt. We'll figure something out. If you want to go back to college and do the normal thing, we'll figure something out for that, too. Just as long as we stick together. So, don't run off again, okay?"

"I won't," Sam says, his voice soft. He feels like a broken record about not running again at this point. "I regretted it pretty quickly anyway."

"Then, why didn't you call or something? We would've come to get you. Hell, we searched the whole damn country for you."

"I _did_ call," Sam says. "You didn't answer. Your number wasn't in service anymore, and then I was shoved into traffic before I had a chance to figure another plan out."

Sam watches the emotions flit across Dean's face. Confusion and deep thought as Sam's words sink in. Realization as his eyes widen. Then, guilt as if this whole situation is his fault. As though he could have predicted that Sam would call and find a way to save his phones from whatever fate befell them that made them get new ones (as happened often in the hunting community).

"Sammy…"

"No, I get it. At the time, it was devastating. But I get it now. I tried the normal thing, and it was terrible. I hated it, and I hated myself for thinking that it'd somehow be better than the life I had. I might not be the best hunter, and my body might not be in the best shape for hunting, but if I learned one thing from the past years, it's that I don't want to be alone again."

Dean grins at that, looking a little more like Sam remembers. "I don't know where we'll go from here, but we'll go together. You don't have to be alone. Ever."

Dean's grin falls from his face and he says, "I don't know why you ran the first time, and I'm not going to ask. You wanna tell me, that's up to you. I don't know if it was something that I did or just the shit storm that life kept throwing at us, but you obviously felt like it was something that you couldn't talk to me about. I just need to know how I can earn your trust back. I need to know if you trust me at all."

The reasons he left seem so far away and trivial now that he looks back on it. He didn't know about the hell that awaited him after he left. How could he have? Those years taught him a lot, even if he didn't remember himself during the entirety of them. They also reinforced truths that Sam hadn't realized beforehand.

He needs his family. Going it on his own wasn't what he expected, and it ended up being worse than he could have anticipated. Dean might have been part of the reason he left, but not because of anything he did intentionally. Just because he loved hunting and Sam didn't, resentment built. How did he let it get so far? Why didn't he ever say anything?

It's too late to ponder some questions, and Sam likely won't be able to scrap together an answer for them. He can, however, answer Dean. Does he trust him?

Well, that's easy.

"Always."

* * *

 **A/N:** Endings are hard, and the Winchesters have a long way to go before they're all okay again, but they've starting building bridges between each other. It's not perfect, but it's something.

As a side note, for those who read Desolation, I've officially put it on hiatus. It's difficult to feel excited about writing at the moment because the new episodes have felt underwhelming and haven't sparked the same interest or inspiration that they used to. It's the same reason that it took me so long to finish up this story. Thank you for understanding and for this journey. I hope that there will be another in the future.


End file.
